Trotson Ministry of Peace Hub Intel

Minimal military value, high priority medical site, Institute infiltration level unknown.

Suggest sending a full cooperative double squad, assessing feasibility of access with an eye towards back door entrances, the MoP hub is likely to have the easiest security to bypass. Records show it being consistent with other major MoP facilities, no lethal security measures of any kind, squad load out should be with an eye towards the wildlife as the primary threat, potentially minotaurs as well from preliminary info.

Highest priority is the ARC project, Hippocratic Research records indicate crossover between their theme park shell business and the MoP. Initial flybys of the area support Proctor Quiz's theory, local plant and wildlife is anomalous. Recommending Scribe Blossom for the medical specialist, would have been one of those Followers if we hadn't been the ones to find her first, she's in the right head space for this mission, put some of that crazed curiosity to use.

Update---

Reprioritizing MoP mission with all the others, due to actions of Paladin Dance's recruit candidate... Occupy the access point if nothing else, eliminate or encourage any non-hostile locals at such locations to move on. Establish forward outpost and cordon off the area, these facilities need to be under Brotherhood control. Elder Macson is personally interested in the MoP ARC project for obvious reasons, if true it also provides a powerful opportunity towards the restoration of Equestria. Ad Victorium Lt. Dawn.

"Soooo... what's the ARC project?"

"W-Where did you get that!? That is classified mission intel for Brotherhood eyes only!! How...!?" Lt. Dawn's red face got redder as she shouted behind me, making our minotaur guides wince at the noise she was making on a hunt through the deep, dark woods.

I didn't mean to scare off any game or announce our presence, but I did want a reaction out of the tight lipped mare. I tried being nice quite some time as we walked down the overgrown roadway, leaves crunching underhoof, weaving with the landscape alongside the meandering dry creekbed through the dense forest, asking friendly questions about what the Brotherhood was doing going after the MoP hub, what they expected to find, what they had run into here so far, anything.

Since she continued her sulking silently through the whole trip, I finally broke out my stolen information from the Brotherhood database and started reading aloud after the last time she turned me away, looking back from trotting along with Jade pulling our damaged school bus to her widening blue eyes and scowl.

"I found it... nevermind how. So? Feel like talking now or should I keep reading? I found lots more I still haven't gone over yet, may as well fill the silence somehow right?"

At the lead minotaur's raised hand, I shut up and listened as he grumbled back in a whisper. "Better if you don't. Coming up on See Saw's, Yao Guai territory, going to see about taking a few if we can cull them. You ponies make too much noise."

"Er... Sorry Sledge, I'll keep it down. Yao Guai?"

"Bears fast, mutated bears. It is a zebra term." Zed murmured back from his position up with the minotaurs leading us on their strange radgoat mounts, they were fellow hunters and the zebra stallion seemed to be enjoying himself joining in their hunt.

Both the zebra and the minotaurs kept some distance, a few of the radgoat riders spread off the rough road we were following to either side, slipping through the undergrowth quietly at our flanks. The Brotherhood were fairly loud clanking down the road, but with our chatting, plus hauling a bus and with both a loud griffon and a playful filly in our group, we weren't precisely quiet either.

Still, our new friends were forgiving, the forest was already riled up and full of noise from outside monsters migrating through, we were informed a few ponies making noise weren't really spooking the game any more than they already were. If they were relying on silence, they'd probably be pretty frustrated with us, the light pink unicorn trotting along backwards ahead of us being a prime example why.

"Oh there's no point being all cloak and dagger Dawn! The ARC project was totally benign! Fascinating from what I've been able to read, a preservation project by the Ministry of Peace, they collected samples of flora and fauna all over Equis, trying to ensure our effects on the environment didn't end up destroying it, er... as we did I suppose. But still, just a collection of biological samples, though the records are fairly thin, there was an implication they were trying to proceed up to...."

"SCRIBE! ENOUGH!" Lt. Dawn hissed at the jabbering medic, getting her to blanch momentarily, then shrug as she returned to closely watching the hitch in my step. I was still getting used to my newly regrown hoof...

Her excited explanation gave me a few tidbits to mull over though. Samples of plants and animals from all over the world, lots of plants here that shouldn't be growing but did. Why would Elder Macson be personally invested? Choosing to keep my musing to myself so Lt. Dawn didn't go off again, I smiled and tried to tear Scribe Blossom's bright gave away from my leg, focusing on her own in front of me.

"Just a friendly warning Blossom, most things in the Commonwealth involving experiments that are supposed to be 'totally benign' usually aren't... So, umm... did you get that pip-buck from the Brotherhood? Or...."

Blinking up from under her billowy pink mane, Scribe Blossom beamed back and held the arcano-tech device up proudly, shaking her head in answer. "Oh no, I got it when I got my mark, back in good old Stable 19! You're from 111 correct? The stasis Stable? The things I read about that one were very interesting, a lot of attention went into it. Do you still have any of the stasis pods? I'd dearly like to examine one! I have so many questions!"

"Er.... I'm sure you do, I can try answering them. You have me at a disadvantage though, you know about mine but I don't know about Stable 19. Maybe you could fill me in? Convince these guys not all Stables were death traps or dens of insanity?"

A dark look crossed Sakura Blossom's delicate features, smiling sadly in reply. "Many were unfortunately, including Stable 19. We were the 'Cultural Exchange' Stable. My ancestors were from Neighpon, there were many others from places like Saddle Arabia, Trottingham, Stalliongrad and so forth. We were meant to keep our traditions alive, share them with the other groups, build a new society from the best of all of them... That is why my features are a bit different than most Equestrians, along with the name and cutie mark."

I puzzled over that a moment, her facial features were a bit exotic, she was a bit shorter than most mares, though that was just a plus in my book, and she was still a bit taller than me... The name I could see being foreign, and the flower cutie mark was a bit stylized and looked a little different than similar marks of flowers I had seen before. Most cutie marks seemed to follow a similar art style actually... was it cultural? The way she answered didn't make me feel great counting on her as proof of a working Stable though.

"What happened?" I asked quietly as she turned to walk facing forward again, following her pert little rump swaying ahead of us and fighting against the radiation that had allowed me grow a new leg, but also made me a bit of a pervert.

"We didn't learn from the past, we repeated it. 19 devolved into tribalism, keeping cultures alive turned to believing one's own culture superior to the others, maintaining purity, fighting over discrimination. It ended poorly... The Steel Rangers who uncovered our Stable came in at the end of a bloody conflict that left it little more than a wreck. I was grateful to be rescued as a filly, even to a wasteland. It is full of so many interesting people and things, all equally struggling to survive! A world of infinite potential! I admit I am guilty of 'crazed curiosity' from time to time, eh Lieutenant?" Scribe Blossom grinned to her commanding officer, only making her sulk more but thankfully keeping it down.

"That was classified Scribe... not for your ears. I'll ask again Mr. Times, where did you get that file?" Glitter gave a guilty 'eep!' from between Jade and I at the Lieutenant's suspicious questioning, flinching away from the Brotherhood mare's raised eyebrow her way. The filly's easily read reaction did get Dawn's scowl to soften a bit anyway, snorting with exasperated amusement. "Using children are we... how 'heroic'... Not to worry child, I prefer blaming your neer do well father anyway, we'll just keep my suspicions out of my report."

Glitter was still clearly eager to change the topic, prancing out among the intimidating minotaurs up front without a hint of fear, returning to her litany of questions for the new oddity of minotaurs the little filly had been befriending as easily as basically everyone else. "So what's the scariest thing ya ever hunted here Mr. Sledge?"

"Cockatrice. Little bastard decided ta hunt us on one of my first hunting trips, turned my pack ta stone and left me all alone! Caught em though, that's this little fella right here!" Sledge flicked a bleached, beaked skull dangling from the leather pads on his broad shoulders to Glitter's wide eyes, hopping up repeatedly for a better look.

Jade gasped in fright and looked all around in the gloom, her worried question still concerned for those who were hurt though. "D-Did you get it to undo the spell Mr. Smasher? If you caught it I can only hope it restored those it had turned to stone. A-Are there many cocktrice in these woods?"

Sledge answered in a gruff chuckle and shook his head, "By 'caught' I mean I dragged his carcass back ta camp, wasn't near good enough ta try baggin' it alive without being able to look at it. Ain't many of em around, but if ya see a chicken in the brush, look away huh!"

"Is that the most dangerous monster Sledge!?" Glitter asked over her mother's shiver, the only thing that had scared Jade more was when she warily asked about something called 'killing joke' when we left Rainbow Brook, calming when assured it at least didn't grow here. I wasn't sure why she was so frightened of it, it sounded like Poison Joke, which could be annoying but was fairly harmless.

I was interested in Sledge's answer here too, so far we had run into; giant scorpions that burrowed underground to come clicking up in ambush, carnivorous pitcher plants that floated and flung poisonous gunk, thorny dark green vines that snaked out of the undergrowth and nearly yanked the heavy power armored Steel Ranger off his hooves, to a waiting thorny maw like a giant venus fly trap, pine trees that launched pine cones at passers by that burst into flames, a smaller pack of Balewolves more easily driven off, and a smaller variety of Bloodwings that were more active even in the day under the gloomy canopy of the forest, thankfully Witchy proved excellent at scaring those away. And Breezeidores of course, lots and lots of breezidores, muddy, misshapen hives were stuck up in the trees at regular intervals, forcing us to keep our distance or discourage bold attackers with fire.

That was just the hostile creatures and plants that felt like making a try even against such a large and well armed party. E.F.S. was constantly flickering with unseen dangers that didn't come out, red and even some green dashes flitted around so much it was getting hard to take the trustworthy function of my pip-buck seriously.

Sharp eyes and hearing had let me spot a trio of 'Radstags' I pointed out to Glitter, just before they bounded off and disappeared rather gracefully for having two heads. I was also fairly certain there were quite a few bunnies and squirels about too, barely registering rodents disappearing under the plants or up the trees more than once, I could swear one of the rabbits had horns though... my eyes must be playing tricks on me in the perpetual dusk down here.

Sledge's guffaw of laughter to our little filly didn't make me feel better about having her wandering these woods with us. "Not by a long shot little missy! Even without all the crap from the Glowing Sea, there's plenty of nasty buggers ta deal with. Most of the Radcrags stick with the marshes, but some find a nice bog or pond here and stake it out, there's Yao Guai and Manticores further north, Cipactli and Reavers in the ponds and creeks, really smart Radcoons we barter with sometimes, even a Hydra prowlin' the eastern edge near the river."

"What's the meanest, toughest monster around huh? I bet my daddy could beat it, that'd make all your friends back home like him right?" Glitter's chest puffed out in pride, making me wince at her casually volunteering me to take on the worst of the worst.

I shrunk behind my wings as Sledge's uproarious laughs spread to his fellow hunters nearby, grinning broadly and scratching his scruffy goatee in thought. "Hmm... toughest around... The weird sisters then, he'd get lots of honor for taking those bitches down. Not goin' anywhere near their territory down south though, us puny hunters are no Shrouded Stallion so they'd gobble us up kiddo!"

"S-Sorry... she has an inflated opinion of what I can handle Sledge. I'm sure you weren't trying to insult these nice and much more experienced minotaurs, were you sweetie?"

My daughter blinked back in confusion a moment, her pink eyes widening as she gasped in realization and shook her head rapidly. "OH! No! You guys are awesome Mr. Sledge! I didn't mean ya weren't, just... m-my daddy is too is all... Sorry?"

Neither Sledge nor the rest seemed insulted, the burly dark minotaur grinned over his rippling shoulders as he patted Glitter's silver mane, sending even the tough little earth pony into a stumbling canter. "So we hear! Takin' down an Alpha Balewolf injured like that was pretty good for a pony missy, I'll give ya that! Since yer comin' ta Salt Lick anyway, ought'a give 'im a chance ta earn some honor on the hunt too I guess, since you vouch for him! What'dya say Shroud, wilin' ta join the sacred hunt, that says more than any fancy words will to tha Chief, we'll let you join if you want. Gotta stop in our favorite Yao Guai grounds soon anyway, it's no dragon or cerebus, but good enough right?"

I still wasn't sure what I thought about hunting in general, let alone joining in what was obviously an important ritual to these friendly minotaurs helping us. If I was hungry and relying on killing animals to live it'd be one thing, but technically I barely needed to eat anymore, hunting for meat would be more because I wanted to eat the flesh of animals than for actual hunger, still something that occasionally made me queasy when I thought about it.

Still, it was a honor being extended to me, even jokingly. We wanted help from Sledge Smasher's people too, taking them up on their kind offer and hopefully impressing them couldn't hurt. If they wanted me to track down and kill one of those sadly twisted but somehow majestic Radstags, I'd be right out. Yao Guai though...., they sounded vicious and foul tempered, killing something that wanted to kill me wasn't so bad.

I had to flinch under Jade's disappointed huff on agreeing, but as best as I could tell, it was the right thing to do here. "I'd be honored Sledge, I've never been hunting so I'm in your hooves ....er.... hands rather." Val giving a forceful 'AHEM!' reminded me to try to expand the invitation after I accepted. "Oh... umm... Val wants to with us, if that's ok. She's tougher than me anyway, why she's my bodyguard, so she'd be mad at me if I left without her."

Zed trotted up and gave a curt bow as Val clucked her approval, speaking respectfully to the minotaur leader. "I would be interested in joining your hunt as well, our peoples share many things in common and joining your ritual would be a unique honor."

"We don't have time to engage in silly minotaur games! We need to remain on mission and-" Lt. Dawn tried interjecting herself into the conversation, promptly cut off when her black and red trimmed power armor sparked from between her wings and gave an unhealthy whine.

Before saying anything, my eyes had locked on her green dash on E.F.S. and I held perfectly still watching for a moment, I could swear I saw a flicker... Nothing now except for a malfunctioning suit and a pissed off mare inside it. I had my suspicions though...

Sighing before she launched into another tirade at the mysterious maintenance issues of this forest, I held a hoof up to cut her off. "Stopping will give me a chance to go over your armor again too Dawn, looking like regular inspections are pretty necessary out here. Besides, we're on their schedule, not the other way around. They're doing us the favor remember? The hub isn't going anywhere, calm down."

Lt. Dawn returned to sulking, but grudgingly ceded my point with her scoffing one word pout. "Gremlins..."

"Inflation from the war my ass! Just bleedin' us dry and using the war as an excuse! This company store horseapples was a bad idea explained with lots of pretty words like fiscal responibility, but now you've just stopped even pretending! Ripper rental fee!? Ball Chain came up with those gadgets, stealin' the idea and makin' a fortune off a military contract through your fancy 'contacts' not enough? Gotta make us pay for the privilege now too!? Why stop there, next thing you know, ponies will just start making other ponies slaves outright! Fuck this company store and fuck you See Saw!"

Judging by the skeleton behind the rotting old rolltop desk with a weird, rusty, miniature chainsaw stuck in its ribs, I was guessing the sender of the dirty holotape I found took things into his own hooves at some point. A faded hanging sign outside nearly covered in crunchy leaves identified the building as 'See Saw Mill Company Store', a convenient shack at the wide road trailing away from the main path we had been following so far.

The piles of scrap that used to be shelves were long ago cleared of anything valuable, though Val did find a safe in the back with quite a haul of prewar bits and a dose of Hydra. Mainly the store was a clearing to park our bus at, a spot for me to go over the three remaining suits of Brotherhood power armor and fix the constantly reappearing damage, and a spot for those not joining in the minotaur's ritual hunt to hang back and wait.

A larger, billboard sized sign further down the road pointed the way towards 'See Saw Mill', our destination according to Sledge. Val and I checked our weapons over and left Jade and the others behind, well protected by Zed, Witchy, Ivy and the four Brotherhood members taking the opportunity to rest. They were already tired from trying this once already, without the benefit of minotaur guides even. I had forgotten how exhausting trudging along the ground could get after just a short time with wings to carry me above it all, now I was sure a lifetime of jealousy over some of the advantages pegasi had was justified.

Our guides communicated in gruff whispers when they had to make noise, odd signs with their hands and wiggly fingers let them do so completely silently too. Val and I stayed with Sledge slinking through the undergrowth, letting me marvel at how creatures so big and bulky could be so sneaky, Val was like a bull in a china shop behind me, while the actual bulls were practically ghosts as we closed in on the map marker in my vision ahead.

Map Updated, flashed in my eyes as we drew close to the ruins and I peeked over a thorny reddish bush covered in purple berries. The trees were having their revenge on the ancient saw mill, overgrowing the grounds and slowly burying it. There was enough to see what it had been though, a pair of rotting, roughly cut, telephone pole sized posts held up the remains of another sign over the road in, only 'See Saw's' remained visible at the gates to the old business.

A rickety, barn like structure still stood mostly intact, made of greying petrified boards still scorched on one side. A waterwheel had fallen from the side overhanging the creekbed, the rusty axle it was formerly mounted to poking out above it and leading back into the dark building, a series of rotting belts and corroded gears used to transmit the steady power to a variety of saws and other machines inside.

Outside were rows of cut and trimmed trees, stacked in tumbledown piles before the rusting hulks of several lumber machines. The dead contraptions looked like Cogsworth crossed with a forklift, a variety of spindly arms with claws and a much bigger version of the Mr. Handy's buzz saw remained frozen where they had been for ages.

Fighting had happened well before we got here apparently, from the bushes off the road I spotted at least half a dozen Yao Guai corpses near the edges of the ruin, the tiny forms of a dozen Breezidores were busily feasting on the carrion not far away. There were still plenty of living examples wandering about though, dens were made in the crumbling buildings and in piles of lumber, if I had to guess I'd say those we could see outside weren't that happy though.

They did look like bears alright, really big and scary bears... Thick, mottled, wrinkly hides with only patches of dirty fur left them looking oddly naked. They still had their long claws and fangs though, and the lack of fur let one see all those dense muscles in more detail than I cared for, the big beasts were more than Jade's height just on all fours, let alone when they decided to stand up on their hindlegs, as I spotted a few doing. They looked like they'd be a challenge even for the intimidating crew of minotaurs one on one, plus there were more of them than there were of us.

A thick, straight tree was partially buried in the loamy soil, it had been roughly carved into a stylized pony shape, a leftover branch forming the horn of Goddess Celestia. A ...what were they called again... a totem pole, like Buffalo in my history books carved. A few others were standing beside it in varying stages of the same rough carving, the weathered edges of the most finished bore a striking resemblance to Ministry Mare Applejack.

Half a dozen Yao Guai milled around these alone, rearing up to scratch their mottled backs against the rough wood or adding their own deep claw marks to the wood at the base. I was intimidated just watching them, wondering how exactly Sledge and his hunters planned on hunting here. I turned to whisper my questions to our minotaur guide and stopped on taking in his scowl, staring up to the shattered steeple like portion of the mill building.

A loud, guttural roar that direction helped me focus on what he was staring at, gaping in confusion at the magical monster perched high above the grounds below. A bear... bear-like thing... Even bigger than the Yao Guai, with an extra set of forelegs sticking out of its chest, a bulbous abdomen spread its hindlegs out to make room for the sharp stinger there. Spiky, chitinous plates covered parts of its body like combat armor and a large pair of insectile wings buzzed on its back. The thing growled and roared down from above, pointing a claw here and there that the Yao Guai below seemed to be following, this thing was in charge?

"Fucking Bugbear... shit..." Sledge informatively gave me the name of the monster I was staring at, a tense edge to his voice as he drew a massive sawed off shotgun, ...a quadruple barreled shotgun... a lot of duct tape and wire had joined two double barreled, pony sized shotguns together into a cannon Sledge flicked open to start loading with a grimace.

"Er.... Bugbear? Is that the Yao Guai in charge? Like... a bear version of an alicorn?" I asked in a curious whisper, the name was familiar from dad's books, but the image in my mind looked a bit different than this thing.

Val snorting muffled laughter let me know that probably wasn't right, but it seemed valid. They were all bears right? Maybe a bigger, winged bear was one that had 'ascended' like ponies, a Yao Guai princess kind of... apparently not though. "Nah boss, they ain't related..."

"Another uninvited tourist from the Glowing Sea Shroud, Bugbears don't belong here. They can push regular bears around easy enough. Probably killed most of those dead Yao Guai just'a prove who's the new boss. Must'a come in recently and decided ta settle in, form a new colony. Yao Guai territory's always a good spot for us, they come here to mate, pair off before hibernatin', lots of stuff, it's a regular fishin' hole kinda thing. If this thing settles in though... Bugbear don't taste half as good and they're twice as hard ta kill. Gotta get rid of it now, before it digs in." Sledge answered in a gruff whisper, sticking his odd fingers in his mouth to whistle birdcalls that were returned from around the mill.

"Ah... ok, can we help? Sounds like it's a problem for you guys, just tell us what to do."

Sledge gave me an appraising stare and furrowed his thick brow in thought, humming to himself and staring up to where the Bugbear perched. "Hmm... Drawing that thing out would be a problem... it'd throw all the Yao Guai at us first, don't care if they die but we do. We only cull out a few when we come this way, we wanna thin their numbers, not wipe em out. Having a couple fliers with us though... this ain't the easy hunt we expected, but a little help is probably a good thing. Sure you're willin'? Bugbears are nasty, even we don't like tanglin' with em."

I checked over my weapons again, rapidly developing the habit of constant vigilance with 'gremlins' about. Tightening a few suspiciously loose connections on the Last Minute, I nodded up to Sledge and spread my wings in readiness. "Well, I can hardly chicken out with my daughter bragging so much can I?"

"Takin' down that big bastard is worth street cred with you boys, right Sledge? We got this..." Val growled and her weapons clicked menacingly, a slight hitch to her grenade machinegun reloading sending me to her flanks to tinker with it first.

Zed nodded along as well, murmuring a sincere reply. "This outsider is disturbing the natural order here, the Yao Guai population will suffer if it is not removed, be drastically weakened and unavailable for years to come if you are forced to come at it directly as well. Fast is not much of an outdoorspony, but does have a talent for killing difficult foes. Let us help."

A toothy minotaur grin answered and Sledge whistled a few new noises, sticking his head above the foliage to make a few hand signs and point down towards a narrow pond nearby. "Will definitely make an impression little pony! Ok, will have half my hunters draw the Yao Guai off, if you can get that thing down and chasin' ya, we'll set up at the old warehouses that'a way. Bring it down to us an' we'll take care of the rest! Sound like a plan?"

"More like one than I usually come up with... Ok, we'll handle the flying stuff if you kill the huge monster."

Sledge practically melted into the vegetation, his mark on E.F.S. disappearing well before he should be out of range. Zed pointed out a row of railcars near the mill on rusty tracks nearly buried under the leaves and dirt, a good spot midway between our target at where the minotaurs were setting up. "Lead it that way, I'm more comfortable on the ground anyway. I will handle any stragglers chasing after, without killing them."

Considering the zebra stallion could paralyze foes with just his hooves, his plan was good. He and the minotaurs had the right priorities that made me respect the hunters more, they weren't hunting for sport, they didn't want to hurt the Yao Guai population, but live in harmony with it. Lessons ponykind had unfortunately forgotten, as the industrialized deforestation business before us attested to.

With Zed on his way and the minotaurs most likely already in place, I flapped my way straight up quietly, aiming for a large, sheltered branch in the fiery orange leafed tree above. Living trees were still an oddity I was continually happy to see again, all this time flying recently, but I hadn't gotten to engage in one of the more fun things to do with the new ability, fluttering up to the treetops so far out of reach before, getting a close look at the squirels and other wildlife that lived up there.

I even spotted a furry shape blurring away as I wove my way over to my selected perch, leaping out into empty space with wild abandon that nearly made me yelp for its safety, surprised to see it spread its paws wide and stretch loose skin between them to first glide, then fly away to another tree.

A spiny ridge of stretched skin sprang out of its bushy tail and its 'wings' seemed to spread once it caught the air, those long buck teeth looked rather sharp too... Still, a squirrel! Getting to see the agile display up close like this, I was heartened by what I had been turned into. It hurt, it came with problems, made me a freak and exposed me to bigotry I had never known before, but getting to fly... to see things like that... It was worth it.

Landing on and clinging to the swaying branch in mild panic, I grumbled at Val climbing up the trunk beside me. Her sharp claws dug right in the bark, letting her hang in place and walk along the vertical surface with ease. I wrapped my hindlegs around the thick branch under me, stretching out on my stomach, the whining gauss rifle the Last Minute poking out of the leaves ahead of me.

We didn't have to wait long, cracks of random gunfire came with several minotaurs charging out of the trees on the other side of the complex, riding their speedy radgoat mounts, swatting at roaring Yao Guai as they passed and making themselves big targets. At the commotion, the huge Bugbear flew out of the open loading door of the upper floors of the mill, landing on the steeple to give deep throated roars of orders to the furious Yao Guai below.

It demonstrated more intelligence than the simple forest creatures below, directing half a dozen after the retreating attackers, another dozen split up to the sides in a pincer maneuver and a few from inside the mill out to be on guard for more threats. It was wary leaving some defenders in place, but had still sent most in pursuit and wasn't keeping an eye on them. Sledge must be right, it didn't demonstrate any concern for the Yao Guai following its orders, potentially sending them off to their death in droves.

That was enough to convince me it deserved what was coming, adjusting my aim in a rush now that it was outside in the open. I held my breath and lined up the shot, really hoping to send a 2mm slug through its head and end this in one surprise attack. "Here goes Val...." I murmured softly and pulled the trigger, sending the electromagnetically accelerated round blurring across the distance separating us.

Hopes for a quick and silent finisher were dashed when the damn thing chose just the wrong moment to move, ducking aside and getting a sonic rainboom speed slug of metal punched through its shoulder for its luck, rather than its head. It screeched in pain and fury, flying straight up with a roar to find where the attack had come from.

Luckily Val had started moving as soon as I pulled the trigger, soaring up to the bright oranges and reds of the canopy as camouflage and diving back down right on top of it, a rain of red magical energy weapon fire coming down and scorching the beast's hide in several places. Val was an agile and expert flier, but the Bugbear was a match for her, those small insect wings propelling it after her with surprising speed. There were grunts and roars from below out of several Yao Guai noticing the battle, but none of them could reach so they were left as an audience.

The monster moved too fast to expect another rifle round to find the target, so I drew Vengeance and the Terrible Shotgun and flew after them. Despite how wrapped up in the aerial battle Val was getting, we were supposed to be bait. The Bugbear narrowly missed nailing Val with that long stinger, swatting at her with both sets of left forelegs as she dodged, a spray of blood followed her weaving dive down to the mill building as I finally made my way in range.

A few barks from the Terrible Shotgun got its attention away from following Val into the building, where she was hopefully drinking down a healing potion and recovering while I kept it busy. The mottled black and yellow carapace on part of its hide really was as tough as the best combat armor, cracking and leaking blood from one spiny plate on the chest that took a shotgun slug dead center, but the shot didn't penetrate. The rubbery hide not covered by such armor was still tough, a bloody gouge appeared on one such unarmored section, but not the significant hole I hoped for.

I did successfully piss it off at least, it roared and dove right at me, nimbly dodging another pair of shotgun blasts as it closed the distance and I scrambled in midair. Diving straight down was the fastest I could go, but it was still overtaking my desperate escape attempt and there were at least three Yao Guai down there waiting for me to come in range. I respected the minotaurs being responsible hunters, but this would be a lot easier if I were free to shoot anything in the way.

An exceedingly sharp set of claws raked my side as I flared my wings, pulling out of the dive and trying to swoop through the splintered gap in the wooden wall blurring by. I halfway made it anyway, clipping the side and smashing through the rotted wood in a fumbling crash. At least the Bugbear wasn't inclined to exactly follow my pitiful flying, pausing at the narrow gap and swiping with its claws to widen it behind me.

Yao Guai were growling nearby, trying to force their way into the musty building as I staggered back up. I landed in some kind of equipment room, the wide open space beyond the door out was filling with red dashes on E.F.S., Yao Guai charging in and around the rusty saw mill. A long conveyor belt still had a big tree halfway cut by the huge vertical circular saw blade at the end, chains and cranes hung down from the ceiling to move the lumber around.

The gadgets arrayed on the moldy corkboard in front of me caught my eye even with the Bugbear on my tail. Miniature chainsaws like the rusty example in the company store up the road. Small enough to be held in a pony's mouth, with a metallic strap off the compact arcane power supply and drive system, you could strap them to a foreleg?

Grabbing them all in my magic, my pip-buck identified them for me as I fed the half dozen devices with magical energy. The 'Rippers' all buzzed to life, swirling around me before I directed them at the Bugbear squeezing its way in. Their rusty metal teeth chewed into the monster's hide and armored plates alike, forcing it to backpedal out again with a dozen bleeding, ragged wounds.

Impressed at the handy arcano-tech devices, I stashed a pair of them in my packs and added Best Served to the ones remaining. I could only guess they were used for trimming branches and such as they were far too small to cut down a tree, but they were pretty useful. Flying straight up in the big room outside before the bears caught up, I gave them another test and sent a circle of them chewing their way through the ceiling. The four mini-chainsaws ripped their way through the wood in a wide circle, giving me a way up to where Val had landed when the round chunk of wood fell away.

The space I crawled up into above made me blink in confusion for a moment, spotting Val tossing land mines around and running for her while still gawking at the weird decor. What had been some kind of dusty storage space was hard to make out now, everything was covered in a dirty yellow, waxy substance, spread on the walls and dripping down to the floor, formed into a great number of roughly hexagonal holes covered in an opague film.

Squirming shadows were visible behind the foggy layer covering each hole, foal sized comma shapes with six short stubs on their sides. Val answered before I could ask, throwing out another mine near a big clump in the corner and giving a hard grin. "Looks like the bitch has been busy huh boss? Can't leave her slimy lil' babies or it'll just be a bigger problem soon."

Larva... they were baby Bugbears... Staring in at the nearest little sluglike shadow made me feel very conflicted. The droning buzz of the thing approaching outside only gave us a few seconds, but I felt a panic at my indecision. The Bugbear was a monster, if it set up here and reproduced, it would take over, probably kill the rest of the Yao Guai off when they weren't needed anymore. But ...babies... even if they were monster babies, they were babies... we couldn't just blow them up, could we? But if we didn't, they'd cause more harm. But if we did, wouldn't that make us the monsters?

Val knew me well, turning back and taking one look at me putting a hoof against the thin barrier over one cell, wincing back at the aggressive twitch of an underdeveloped stinger from inside. Her claw grabbed me by the scruff and yanked me back, giving a little shake as she got in my face with one violet eye on the open window up the wall.

"Don't start boss, Blue's the full on bleedin' heart, not you. These little bastards hatch an' the first thing they're likely ta do is start killin' the nearest prey ta practice on, can bet that bitch is keepin' bears around just fer fresh food fer her brood. We ain't killin' baby monsters, we're exterminatin' pests, now get yer shit toget-" Val's gruff little pep talk was cut short by the light in the room dimming and a furious roar, the Bugbear had flown up to her entrance and spotted us again.

The soft thump of several 25mm grenades from Val's hip engulfed the narrow entrance in flames and she dove for the hole I had made from below, dragging me with her and taking the decision out of my hooves, pulling the pin and tossing a regular metal apple grenade behind her.

Rushing to escape, she kept her tight grip on my mane and dove through the open space of the mill, streaking straight for one of the large, empty windowframes and dragging me with her. We smashed through the rusty metal bars almost completely devoid of glass, hitting the open air with the growls and roars of a lot of Yao Guai below chasing us.

A series of detonations sent a blast wave rolling out behind us, loosening Val's grip as we spun in the turbulence and giving me a good view of the Bugbear's nest. Val's mines went off like fireworks, blowing the wooden structure to splinters and sending the flaming ruins crumpling in on itself to the mill below. Hopefully it put itself out or the blaze would stay confined to the mill building, I really didn't want to both wipe out baby monsters and start a forest fire in one day...

Unable to right myself in time, I crashed through a rotting roof of rough timbers held up by four posts and no walls, a place to store the stacks of milled lumber I smashed into apparently. I shook myself off and stumbled back up, glad I landed somewhere off the ground with the Yao Guai charging my way. The distinctive boom of Val's big pistol let me pick her out clinging to a swaying pine tree nearby, firing at the crowd of red on E.F.S., the pistol wouldn't do much to seriously damage to the beasts giving chase, but did slow them down a second, giving me time to get in the air again.

An howl of pain and blinding rage echoed through the woods, a dark shape smashing out of the flaming top of the mill and buzzing above it. The singed and bleeding Bugbear was missing a hindleg on one side and a middle leg on the other, it still had murder in its red eyes, scanning all over until it spotted us again and screaming its fury as it dove right at us. Well... we definitely had its attention, I was pretty sure it would follow us into the gates Tartarus now.

The remaining Yao Guai followed its bellowing command as we flew off, Val dragging me up to closer to her speed by my coat. The ground bound monsters fell behind quickly, right on track to follow between the rusting train cars, where I barely caught a glimpse of black and white stripes hiding in the shadows. Zed was ready to delay the Yao Guai when they came, meaning all we had to worry about was the Bugbear streaking after us.

The tumbled down warehouse we were aiming for was perched right on the edge of a small lake, leaning halfway into the still waters and surrounded by a huge pile of fallen limbs and trees. Sledge was waiting near the wide open warehouse door, waving us on and ducking back behind a rusting truck, his shout of "Go straight through! Don't stop!" was odd, but we were trusting the skilled hunters to handle this thing.

Turning back in Val's grip let me face our pursuer, the smoking Bugbear was closing the distance steadily, a few more shotgun slugs slowed its rapid flight at least as we dove into the warehouse. I heard Val grunt and was slung through the air in front of her, left to madly flap and try to avoid the warren of beams and branches filling the dark space. It was too tight for Val to drag me with her, opting to fling me ahead and bound from perch to perch with her claws, shoving me forward and squawking furiously when the monster chasing us crashed in, sending a stream of M.E.W. fire behind us as I scrambled forward.

There wasn't much left of the dock door in the back, half submerged in the murky water with only a diagonal corner clear. We sped through, skimming the water with my hooves and pulling up sharply ahead of the roars and crashes behind us. A sharp whistle and splashes behind us made me glance back, spotting the pair of minotaurs crouched on the roof waving us back the way we came.

A heavy net was draped over the exit from the leaning roof, tied to heavy boulders I saw a third hunter tossing over the edge as a third was doing. I'd noticed all the minotaurs had well tended nets among their gear, this looked like they had strung them together into one larger barrier for a much bigger catch.

Heeding their advice, I gave a hard backwards flap, putting on the brakes and turning back to run across the corroded steel roof with them. More crashes and roars were sounding out right under my hooves from the Bugbear smashing through the weird wooden maze, its red mark on E.F.S. steadily moving forwrad, along with more? Lots more... lots more red marks right under us...

We ran back the full distance of the warehouse again, leaping from the roof down to where Sledge had been hidden. Another strong looking net had been strung across the more level front door, the woven vines didn't look like they'd pose much of a barrier for the Bugbear's sharp claws, but clearly they knew something I didn't.

Suddenly the roars rose in pitch and intensity, the whole, unsteady building shaking crazily as my ears picked up squeals and chittering noises along with the Bugbear's pained cries. Unable to stop myself, I trotted to the net and peered in, instantly wishing my eyes weren't quite so sharp and able to see in the dark now.

A swarm of dark, mottled ...things... were pouring out of the piles of timber inside, rough, bark-like hides and four paws ending in sharp claws. Each had a wide, flat tail dragging behind its bulbous rear, the thick hide back there made each look like a gnarled wooden club. Most disturbing were the glistening fangs though, an arrow of razor sharp buck teeth curling down past what should be the limits of the thing's jaws. There were dozens of the creatures inside, all of them chattering angrily as they leapt at the struggling Bugbear, each swipe of those fangs tearing big chunks of the creature away.

"Reavers... never mess with em, you see why." Sledge's gruff chuckle beside me made me jump back from the gory display that had me transfixed, stammering up to the grinning minotaur watching the bloody show.

"W-What?! What the hell are those things!? We ran right through there!!" I yelped back, realizing how close I had come to the vicious little monsters' nest.

Sledge's hearty slap to the back sent me stumbling as the other hunters bundled the nets back up quietly and started leading us away. "Reavers! Not wastin' the blood and ammo it'd take to bring that bitch down when there's a nest of these little bastards right here! They're not really a problem out of the water, unless yer dumb enough to smash through their den of course! Knew you'd be fine little pony, slipped right through didn't ya?"

Taking one last look over my shoulder and giving a shudder as the Bugbear's red dash on E.F.S. winked out, I quickened my pace up the trail, meeting Zed rejoining us only slightly worse for wear. The zebra knew what I was trying to cope with better than the others, answering in a low voice full of respect for the minotaur and their tactics. "Mutated beavers Fast. They know these woods well, used a nearby adversary against the threat. Quite resourceful isn't it?"

"S-Sure... resourceful..." Of course I would have liked knowing of their resourcefulness before I was sent through a den of land piranha...

After the minotaur had field dressed their Yao Guai catch they had culled out of those drawn off from the mill, we were on our way again. Making steady progress to the west with, only a few stops for some new threat or mysterious malfunction. The road sloped down as the gentle hills started rising above us, the already chilly temperature dropping a few degrees as we entered the valley of the MoP hub.

The dome of glowing, pale yellow shield ahead dominated the view, the closer we got, the bigger the huge willow inside looked. The afternoon light glittered off the silvery green leaves hanging down in a curtain all around it, it had an odd regularity to its natural irregularity, the glint of glass windows here and there betraying its artificial nature.

Filling the valley between us and it was a sheltered town of ruins, bisected by the road we were on and the creekbed it followed, leading straight to the MoP hub. There had been a great number of thatched roofed homes like back in Rainbow Brook, though these were in better shape, along with a lot of sturdier brick and concrete buildings.

As Jade's excited hoofsteps clopped down the crumbled stone road with our bus bouncing along behind the super strong alicorn, my pip-buck flashed with text; Discovered Location: Willowville and I struggled to keep up with the overjoyed medic. "There it is! There it is Fast! Oh it is beautiful! Do you see Glitter dear? As I said, a real treehouse hmm? I cannot wait to get there! Your father will find a way in and we shall-"

"Shush big pony... rile up the Breezidores if you make too much noise. Be too loud, attract a crowd! Hold up a minute." Sledge held a hand up and his crew of hunters stopped as one, flopping down to take a break in the street and digging in their leather packs.

Jade's whinny and pout was too adorable to ignore, the break gave me a chance to force her to unhitch from the bus and accept nuzzling attention to cheer her up, trying to stop her shifting anxiously on her hooves. "Easy hon, it's not going anywhere. Trust me, these guys know best, we'll be there in no time. Try not to get your hopes up so much anyway ok? Putting a lot of faith in me breaking through it somehow and that's not likely."

Having the big alicorn scoop me up into a deep, passionate kiss, even in front of everyone watching with varied smirks or stuck out tongues proved how happy she was anyway. She nibbled my ear and whispered huskily while our audience sniggered. "I have faith in you. Period. You will find a way for me, somehow. I cannot wait to inform Miss Remedy once we have secured this hub for the Followers, she will be so happy!"

Val made retching noises at the sappy display of affection and popped open the rear door of our parked bus, digging around inside with her rump sticking out and long tail flicking back and forth. "Yer happy anyway, right Blue? Could care less what some fancy pants, big shot head Follower in charge thinks. Doin' this fer you, not her, eh boss? Alright, new toy time all you lugs, brought this shit fer a reason."

The half dozen flamers Val had pilfered from Summerset Plantation were tossed behind her rapid fire, the bright griffon following a moment later on her hindlegs, her claws full of glowing orange canisters of fuel for the fiery weapons. She set these down gently, then started grabbing the weapons in pairs, heading to Witchy and Zed first and dropping them in front of the confused pair before racing back for more, clucking to herself the whole time.

"One fer you, one fer you, one fer you..." I yelped and scrambled after her, that last 'you' was Glitter prancing in place and holding her hooves out, rewarded with a heavy flamer battlesaddle bigger than she was, that she immediately hugged to herself in glee.

"NO! Nuh-uh, you are not playing with that thing Glitter! Val! What are you doing!?"

Floating the poorly maintained weapon away from Glitter's strong grip brought her with it, forcing me to shake the flamer in my magic vigorously to dislodge her and earning me her puppy-eyed wrath. "DAAA-AAAD! No fair!! Aunty Val gave it to me! At least lemme shoot it once!!"

Witching Hour nosed at her own flamer a moment, taking a deep breath and shouting out in a nearly inaudible range towards the ghost town being overgrown by the dense forest below. Her slitted amber eyes widened as her ears flicked getting the return echo bouncing back, turning back to the flamer and hoofing at the harness to figure it out as she nodded rapidly my way. "Y-You may want to let thine child hold on to it Fast... that place is infested with tiny creatures, the Breezidores I imagine? A-After being stung by one, I for one have no interest in repeating the experience."

My mouth dried up at her horrified expression, how bad was it down there? Before I could ask, Sledge came over and tossed half a dozen bundles of dried herbs near the flamers. He was in the process of rubbing another of the bound plants across his broad chest, a spicy smell drifting through the air around him from other minotaurs who were lighting them aflame to smolder and smoke.

"Wasteland bug spray, won't stop em if they get bold, but they don't like it and it masks our scent. Don't advise any pokin' around in the ruins, no matter what temptation... Damn things have hives everywhere out here." By the way he raised a scruffy eyebrow towards Jade still prancing to herself in glee, I got the idea they were worried about more overexcited outbursts from a certain big blue filly.

"Right Sledge, don't worry, she'll ummm... get it out of her system. So is it only Breezidores? Do you guys not come here to hunt anything? Doesn't really look like the place has been scavenged either."

Sledge waved a thick, scarred arm out to the village in the shadow of the MoP hub and shrugged. "No good hunting, just a fuckton of Breezidores, always has been. Same reason no one's really done much digging in the rubble, Breezidores are territorial, usually let you pass if you don't dawdle, but screw with things around their hives? Nasty little things go bugshit!"

"Where do they come from Sledge? Do you know? You guys really know these woods and all the stuff in them, I only knew them as Breezies before the war, any clue how they wound up like this?" I asked curiously while trying to hold a squirming filly down and rub the bundle of slightly stinky herbs on her pale coat, Breezidores still bothered me on a fundamental level, of all the things the wasteland twisted into monsters, seeing what it made Breezies into really got to me for some reason, more so after seeing there were still real Breezies around.

My hopes for getting a clue thanks to some minotaur wisdom didn't look good though, Sledge scratched his head in thought and muttered to himself a moment, shrugging back when he was done with a smile. "Nope, always been that way. Granny Rolling Pin may know back home though. She used ta tell stories 'bout fairies when I was little, good little spirits that would leave gifts for lost travelers, visit garden plots and help the plants grow, that kinda thing. Said Breezidores weren't always bad, that they're like ...hmm... Like tiny little zombie ponies I guess, from the bombs. That's not quite right though, undead don't reproduce, they're dead after all. Breezidores do, a lot."

Well, that was a little more information anyway. So they were alive... admittedly my first thought on getting a good look at one was just as Sledge had said, they were like tiny ghouls in a way. If they reproduced though, they had to be alive, mutated and twisted into vicious little pests, but alive. There were a lot of twisted forms of life in these woods as the 'Reavers' and Yao Guai demonstrated, along with all the trees growing in what was a wasteland everywhere else, plus the strange crops growing on farms all over on the borders of the forest. The Ministry of Peace hub was a focal point for a lot of weirdness, I wanted to know why.

Jade and Glitter both chose to focus on the positive, the big blue alicorn took over so the two fillies could help each other continue rubbing themselves down with our herbal Breezidore repellent. They whispered back and forth quickly and both turned a matching pout on me, "We are still jealous Fast. You have now not only seen the last migration of true Breezies, but seen modern 'Fairy' Breezies as well, when no one else has! At least we got to see a picture of the migration, if you see more you must tell us both immediately."

"Yeah daddy! S'not fair, how come you get ta see the fairies lots and I ain't even once!" Glitter stamped her hooves in a cute pout and crossed her forelegs, floated up in her mother's magic to rub the bundle of dried plants on her tummy to her uncontrolled giggles, totally undermining the cross expression she was going for.

Rubbing the stuff in my mane gave me an excuse to scratch it and think, but still coming up blank... "You've said that before Jade, that you were jealous I got to see Breezies once? Did I? I don't remember very well..."

A light blush lit my princess' cheeks and she scuffed a hoof at the road, digging in her medical box packs and sending a well preserved old photo flying over in her magic as she nodded back. "Yes! Er... I did tell you it was one of my favorites... you were a very cute foal Fast and that is a wonderful picture, is it not Glitter?"

Staring at a version of myself younger than Glitter, I could only give a weak smile at my daughter bobbing her head rapidly in agreement. "Ya-huh! It's funny seein' you so little daddy! You're cute, I'd wanna be friends with you, like that bright yellow pony in some of the other pictures. Then you'd have two friends! We could play together! Not that we don't anyway, but it'd be different!"

Putting aside Jade's huff at the mention of Sunset in some of her other pictures, I had to agree. The ecstatic foal squealing in the photo was cute, I could hardly reconcile that pony with myself now, but I had been him once. What bothered me was how I still couldn't remember, even staring right at the proof. The way my own red eyes were filling my face and sparkling, I doubted this was something I'd forget, but I had anyway.

A pair of light blue forelegs held me up from out of frame, somepony holding the wingless little unicorn in the photo high up among the clouds. That dark foal's face looked up in wide-eyed wonder, surrounded by bright diaphanous wings attached to tiny pony shapes, dozens of Breezies were clearly visible within the view of the photo.

Many more tiny specks were in the background too, filling the blue skies around a cloud town floating in the background in a wavy course following the breeze, thin ribbons of rainbows cascaded down from it to the ground below. Something was odd about breezies being that close to young me... I just couldn't put my hoof on it, the fog blocking off that memory distracted me too much.

The best I got was a tickle of memory, a feeling this was true and happened to me, but I couldn't actually remember it at all... I was younger than Glitter in the picture, it was a long time ago, even discounting the 200 years I had spent mostly asleep. I supposed forgetting wasn't that unusual, but it seemed wrong, how could I forget that?

My concentration trying to trace down that ragged thread of memory was short circuited by Val, pinching my cheeks from over my shoulder and grinning. "Awwww, boss is such a cutie-wootie! Enough memory lane though, help me get the bits I can't reach boss, you scratch my back, an' I'll scratch yers!"

The bright orange rump stuck in my face and wiggling showed how Val's definition of 'back' differed than the norm, insistently bouncing in my view until I took the bundle of herbs from her claws and floated it up to her actual back, rubbing the tribal concoction in her fur between her wings and letting Ivy eagerly take the photo. Weird, but I really couldn't remember and the bouncy griffon was taking most of my attention now, demanding I not cheat and use my magic while shoving my rubbing hooves lower, over Jade's huff of annoyance.

"Valkyrie, I would be happy to assist you in reaching certain a-areas instead..." Jade glowered as Glitter clambered up to get her mother's back before I had the chance. I liked them growing closer and spending time together as mother and daughter, but I really would have preferred to be the one who got to do that job...

Having my hooves roaming over Val's lithe body was a good substitute anyway, making my mane itch and wings spring up, quickly losing myself under the influence of a lot of radiation I still hadn't fully absorbed, the needle on my rad meter still firmly in the yellow. I didn't exactly need much encouragement to follow the gentle arch of Val's spine to the base of her flicking tail, my fangs lengthening as I stared at her bar-code cutie mark thing, hanging on the scars and licking my lips, I reeeeeally wanted to kiss them better still.

"Nope! I like boss doin' it! Pay me boss, keep goin'! Woooo... gettin' a lil' frisky ain't ya?" Wait till it's my turn!" Val grinned back over Jade's protests, her playful flirting and jokes actually helped me keep control, she liked messing with me, but was learning how far she could take it now after my outburst in Jamocha Plains and getting some things out in the open.

Witchy blushing brightly beside us and holding her own bundle in her needle sharp fangs only added to it though, giving a nervous, demure smile and turning to put her back to us. She fluttered her leathery wings and wiggled that ample rear anxiously, looking over her shoulder to murmur in embarassment. "A-Actually... when you're done I could use help as well... I-If thine Princess agrees? A-And you don't mind of course... helping like that, w-with me?"

"I must insist on the same treatment too sister. Mmm in the interest of Fast's mental health of course, you want him to learn self control after all." Ivy returned the photo and trotted up merrily, presenting her long back to me and ruffling her wings impatiently.

Even without being able to feel the thoughts running through her head, I could see the mischief in her eyes easy enough. Her mental presence kept lightly brushing my own and keeping tabs on me, her psychic scruntiny had actually intensified as I tried to remember when the photo was taken, but she wasn't saying anything, just flicking her tail invitingly and smiling over her shoulder at Jade's frustrated snorts.

My mane was now all pins and needles, like just the grey hair and scalp had fallen asleep and was stinging its way awake again. I could see little sparkles in Ivy's, Witchy's and even Val's eyes, spreading to Jade's unsure stare as well and softening it. If we weren't preparing to head off to the hub and potential danger.... if we only had a little time, part of me was frantically volunteering ways to find somewhere private and convince all of them to slip off with me for a bit...

Cutting me off before I really got going, Jade nickered to herself and huffed, "If the two of you need help, you can help each other rather than wait, is that not so? We have neither the time nor p-privacy for shenanigans. Enough teasing all of you... some other time perhaps."

The bright purple eyes of Scribe Blossom seemed to pop up out of nowhere in the midst of very thoroughly rubbing the dried plant matter into Val's rump, her horn glowing pale pink and washing over me as she bounded forward and stuck her muzzle directly in my mane, taking a long inhalation and gasping as I fell back in surprise.

"Aha! These are the side effects you mentioned Dr. Jade? Fascinating! Subject's pheromone production seems off the charts, from sebaceous glands in the scalp it seems? Very pleasant! Ah, fangs! Do they come out consciously Mr. Times, or is it a subconscious reaction? Do your wings ache? Is that standard spontaneous wing erection as experienced by pegasi during puberty? Of course, a recent development for you so still not mastered. Oh my... your scent affects all mares? Not just other alicorns? I myself am experiencing elevated heart rate, sweat production, a pleasant dulling of faculties accompanied by minor mating response... how interesting."

"There appears to be a magical component by ocular response in nearby females, can only assume mine are doing the same as well, need a mirror. Miss Valkyrie, as a griffon does your experience differ? I see you are having a similar response, further evidence of magical nature of the mutated biology, cross species attraction appears evident. With the subject and his mate's approval, will further explore personal reaction in the interest of medical science. Dr. Jade, I was wondering if..." Scribe Blossom jabbered and paced around me shrinking away, poking and prodding with her magic while she took audio notes into her pip-buck, finally looking up to Jade curiously.

"NO! N-No experiments along those lines if you please Scribe Blossom. I would be happy to relate relevant information to you, I see no reason for you to involve yourself in such research thank you. It is best not to get him started for now, w-we do have work to do, do we not?" Jade stamped a hoof down and managed to catch the excited mare's attention, getting a quizzical stare back until Lt. Dawn stomped over and dragged her off by her tail.

Coming close gave the annoyed Brotherhood mare a good whiff too, softening her scowl slightly and slowing her tromping pace away. "E-Enough fraternizing Scribe, the Princess is right, we have a mission to get back to. Mr. Times... among those we have lost on this fubared foray, unfortunately our technician Scribe was among them, as you know graciously tending to our insane repair needs here this whole way... Scribe Blossom is brilliant within her area of focus, but we... we're forced to rely on you again to get past the hub's security. Can you do it?"

I shook my head forcefully to clear the fog away and waggled a hoof back noncommittally. "Ehhhh... I wouldn't count on it..." Jade gave a pained whine and forced me to attempt to be optimistic, trying to put off disappointing the mare I loved as long as possible. "I mean I'll try! Really, I'll give it my best shot, no holding back, seriously. Just... like I said, it took a week to break through the Ministry of Morale hub, I had help and lots of time, plus I sorta think I was meant to get in. I have no idea about this one. Mayor Shamrock said all the hubs had advanced computers like the one in Goodneighbor, they're not easy to hack soooo... Just don't get your hopes up too much. We'll all find out together, then you'll have something to tell the Brotherhood. Ok?"

Her sour faced reply was interrupted by the grinding noise of failing servos in her right hindleg, a part I had recently checked... Lt. Dawn sighed heavily and rolled her blue eyes, glowering back at me with weary resignation. "We're left with little choice but to rely on you Mr. Times... If you could keep it in your pants long enough to reach the hub that is. When you're done playing around with your harem perhaps you could give my troops another check up, I hate this forest..."

That flicker on E.F.S. came from her direction again, getting me to finish rubbing Val down and pausing on the way to Ivy giggling to herself with a red faced Witchy. Despite Dawn's surly attitude, as a repair-pony we could agree there, this forest was hell on machines and we were both getting annoyed with it. I looked up to the dense canopy, closing my eyes and letting my sharper ears take in all the sounds of life and movement constantly around us.

Clearing my throat, I lifted my head and called out clearly to the woods and whatever 'gremlins' were out there. "I really wish you'd stop doing that please. We're not enemies, you're making a lot more work for me. You could come out and talk instead of screwing with us. Any takers? I promise it's safe!"

The others looked at me like I was crazy, except the minotaurs who just snorted jovial laughter, but otherwise found me talking to 'forest spirits' perfectly rational. Thankfully none of them spoke for a moment, letting me keep my eyes closed and listen as hard as enhanced alicorn hearing could manage.

There wasn't an answer of course, just the sounds of mutated nature and a dead town waiting for us, the wind rustling the dry leaves, sending some swirling down the cracked asphalt nearby in tiny tornados. The buzz of distant wings down in Willowville of who knew how many Breezidores...

Then I heard it, barely.... A high pitched chatter and the nearly imperceptible flutter of wings. Smiling to myself, I opened my eyes to the curious stares of my companions and shrugged, trotting to Witchy and Ivy's waiting backs happily. "Gremlins..."

"This place is fuckin' spooky boss.... Like, creepier than most ruins... can't put my claw on why, but it is." Val grumbled beside me as we paced ahead of Jade clopping down the silent streets of Willowville, summing up the feeling that had been bothering me since we passed into its borders.

Spooky was it in a nutshell. I'd been exposed to plenty of wasteland ruins at this point, wreckage of the old world falling to rubble under the steady march of time I had skipped over. Usually for me it was bothersome because I remembered what it should look like, forced to reconcile it with how things were now and getting reminded all over again how the world of my childhood had decided to destroy itself. For no good reason any grown up had ever been able to explain properly to me no less.

Here though, there was something else, like Val said, something I couldn't quite put my hoof on. Willowville wasn't the same as most places, the forest was reclaiming it inexorably, the cobblestone streets were weedy and full of leaves, the gutters regular little planters full of rotting plant matter turning to dirt that smaller plants were taking root in, while vines snaked up the light posts.

There weren't a lot of rusting carriages in the streets, as best I could figure by all the rusting bus stop signs, the place had once boasted a decent public transportation system and most of the residents were probably connected to the MoP hub or local businesses, so no need to go far. There was a lot of tumbledown apartments, cute little homes or duplexes of high peaked, thatched roofs that were either fallen in or overgrown, small corner grocers, diners with faded ads in the broken windows for fresh daffodil sandwiches, it looked like a pretty idyllic little town before it was all burned by balefire.

I had to slow down and veer Jade back on course when I heard her heavy hoofsteps falter, she found the whole place wonderful, staring with wide, sparkling blue eyes up to the dark sign bearing the cross and butterflies mark of the Ministry of Peace above a fairly sizable brick building reading; 'Ping's Potions - Magic in a Bottle!'.

Like me she could peer in the dirty windows and read the posters and offerings within despite the gloom inside, speaking in an overjoyed whisper. "A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down... Try our improved flavors, Blueberry Healing Potions, Lemon Rad-Away, Raspberry Rad-X... That is very clever! Could we not just take a peek Fast?"

The buzzing inside rose in pitch as our bus moved from the center of the street closer to the crumbling building, red dashes on E.F.S. centered on the mottled, bulbous construction of dried mud behind the counter, rose up in answer to her hopeful question. Half a dozen vicious little breezidores came flitting out, turned back by Val and Witchy sending bursts of fire from our pilfered flamers out to engulf the broken windows and front door. Another two managed to make it out on singed wings, forcing me to use half a dozen 10mm rounds from Deliverer with S.A.T.S. to hit one speedy little bastard, while Zed simply made an agile leap and swatted the other out of the air with his hooves, the zebra had been offered a flamer as well, but turned his nose up at it, clearly fine without it.

Floating the broken corpse of the one Zed took out to her disappointed pout, while trying not to send it on a detour to take a lick of the wonderful golden Nectar in the bulbous growths on its flanks, I shrugged to her sadly and nudged her back on course. "You heard Sledge, no scavenging, sorry hon. Maybe someday, when the Gunners aren't breathing down our necks maybe... We can come back with lots of Minutemares and lots of flamers, I bet there's tons of great Followers-type stuff. And what are you doing out of your hidey hole young lady! What did I say, any time you hear bugs, you hide!"

Glitter 'eeped' from the window of the bus she was currently hanging out of, scrambling to hide the big flamer she had propped in the window and peeking up above the empty window frame with a pout. "I'm not a baby! I don't wanna go hide from bugs! We gots all these tough friends, it's safe daddy!"

"Dear, the poison these creatures sting with is very potent, it even affected your father and he is very resistant now. You are much smaller, the effect would be more pronounced and potentially deadly before we could administer anti-venom. I agree with your father, having you with us is quite dangerous enough, if you hear the buzzing of those wings, you are to hide in your crate where they cannot reach you." Jade answered for me, laying down the law to the little filly with a stare that brooked no argument.

A steel crate from Summerset Plantation was the best compromise I could come up with. If she'd actually hide in the damn thing like she was supposed to, no little Breezidore would be able to get in and sting her. Her normally more than effective puppy eyes and lip quiver weren't changing my mind, giving her a flat glower and turning my attention back to the potion shop.

A faded poster of Fluttershy in an adorable pink and yellow nurses outfit (I wonder if I could find one of those here that would fit Jade?) adorned the wall near the door, reading the founding principles of Jade's Followers of the Apocalypse -“War? Fear? Death? We must do better! Ministry of Peace”- let me put one more thing in the weird column of Willowville. This wasn't the first Ministry poster I had spotted on our way in, but like the others it was Ministry of Peace, MoP posters were the only posters...

No creepy Pinkie Pie staring from the walls 'FOREVER', no intimidating Steel Rangers, no awesome and scary Shadowbolt armor like the Brotherhood's Lt. Dawn wore ahead of us, no Twilight Sparkle telling us how reading was 'FUN-damental', no images of evil looking zebras up to no good telling us 'See something, Say something!'.

As far as the propaganda in Willowville was concerned, the war was only about healing the injured and had no concern for how they were getting that way. This poster was basically as close as I had seen the posters in town acknowledging there even was a war, that and one for Wartime Stress Disorder on an inviting little brick home with a shingle for 'Heartmender Melody Rose' hanging crookedly above the porch.

Scribe Sakura Blossom pranced about much to the annoyance of her commander Lt. Dawn, dashing off to each side of the street every time we came to an intersection off the main road, holding a foreleg up to shade her eyes and squint in the distance. She'd been doing that awhile, finally unable to hold her tongue despite orders from her dour Lieutenant to the contrary, helping me click another puzzle piece into what bothered me about this place.

"Still no corpses! I've never been to a wasteland ruin that wasn't teeming with skeletons! I wonder what happened to them, we didn't get this far before. I had assumed our minotaur friends here had cleared them out of Rainbow Brook so I thought nothing of it, but I doubt that's the case here. From my observations Breezidores are primarily carrion scavengers, there should still be bones, unless they eat those as well I guess. Mr. Smasher, do you know why there aren't any skeletons about perhaps?" Trotting up to the burly dark minotaur leading our little caravan made Lt. Dawn snort in annoyance, but she let her go this time, probably as interested as I was in the answer.

Sledge Smasher's shrug was a little disappointing, coming along with his mysterious answer. "Forest reclaimed them. Returned them to the earth where the dead belong. Hadn't wondered why there's no zombies crazy pony?"

Now that he mentioned it, that was another oddity. Every big town I had ever been to in the wasteland generally had a population of undead in the ruins, rising from the rubble to come charging out, all vicious, snapping jaws and dead eyes. Other than the buzz of Breezidore wings my ears kept flicking at, this place was totally silent, we'd not seen a ghoul or zombie since we entered the forest.

The main road reached a circular park up ahead that gave us all pause, cutting off my brooding over all the weird things concerning this part of the Commonwealth. The riot of color made even the hardened Lt. Dawn gasp in surprise staring at it, flowers... lots and lots of flowers, bushes, small trees, an ornamental garden that was once carefully managed and laid out, now overgrown but full of wild beauty I hadn't seen since the old world.

The main road for vehicles split to loop around the pool of color in a circle, crossing over the dry creekbed that meandered its way straight through alongside a smaller path through the park. Opting for the straightest course and eager to explore this oasis, we slowly walked in under the arched wooden gate reading; Willowville Meditation Garden.

I smiled at Witching Hour fluttering above the delicate flowers, her slitted orange eyes wide with wonder and squeaking in her cute, high pitched voice that was so strange hearing out of a heavily armored, extremely strong warrior batpony. "I have never seen anything like this! Flowers! Real flowers! So many of them too!"

Zed opted to stay at the edges of the group, wandering through the vegetation that came up to his chest and pausing at a few particularly vibrant examples. "Many of these don't belong here either Fast... This is one of those growing in Stable 114 under controlled, colder conditions, used to produce the mind control drug there. This is one from the zebra lands too, normally found in swamps and marshes."

Another mark of weirdness, seeing the delicate Crystal Dream Flowers growing in the wild was especially disconcerting. There was a fall chill in the air that none of these plants should be blooming in, but it wasn't as cold as the refrigerated orchard of Stable 114. I had hoped we wiped them out and made sure no more Dawn or Dusk could be produced, if they were growing here, more could be made and used against innocent ponies.

The open plaza up ahead gave a good spot to take a break for a minute, earning me an impatient snort from Sledge when I asked, but the minotaur indulged me. "Just a minute Shroud pony, guess it's alright. Bugs don't like this place, flowers keep them away we think."

We stopped in the shadow beneath a vine covered statue of a tall, skinny pegasus stallion. Whoever he was, he had a pretty smug look etched in stone under his styled mane, depicted in a sharp suit and in a self satisfied pose that was surely meant to make him look regal, but only communicated a buck who thought too much of himself.

Checking Eyes Forward Sparkle was pretty unreliable out here with all the Breezidores in range flickering in and out of detection, but with Sledge's grudging assurance I gave in to Glitter's pouting and let her off the bus, making her promise to stay close to Ivy, who was eager to look around as well.

"This is delightful, if only I could bring the children from my orphanage here, I would love for them to see how beautiful nature can be, should be... You've said these pip-buck devices of yours can take pictures Fast? Could you show me? Not as good as a field trip so to speak, but bringing young Glitter here is already bad enough, I'd shudder to think what bringing Wicket and all the rest here would entail." Ivy beamed from a clump of lilies, leaning down to sniff at them as Glitter bounded around her in circles.

One pretty convenient thing about green alicorns was how easy explaining things was to them. I didn't have to walk over and show her which menus to access and what buttons to press on the arcano-tech device on her outstretched hoof, I just had to think about it and she did the rest flawlessly. Leaving me free to nudge Jade from the bus harness, into taking a walk in the park with me happily. This would be a good old world date, I wasn't passing up the brief opportunity.

A little wandering the garden with my ...wife... (fiance maybe, I really had to find out how marriage was done in the wasteland) let me find what I was looking for, a thick red rosebush growing off in a shady corner of the park. Best Served proved as effective at clipping flowers as it was at slicing throats, making me wish I was able to stop feeding the starmetal blade blood and use it for simple tasks like this more often. A big bouquet of deep red roses quickly floated together in my magic, presented to Jade with a flourish that got a blushing whinny of joy and nuzzle over the gesture.

I clipped one short and trimmed the rather long thorns from the remaining stem, tucking the red rose behind her ear in her cloudy, pale mane, taking a moment to admire just how beautiful she was, how even the magically growing rose only accentuated her perfect face, but came nowhere near matching it. Trying to put that thought into words was hard and I felt my face heat up in the attempt, but it was important to me she know just how much I loved her, how nothing else compared to my Princess.

"You... pretty.... Umm! I mean... This place is like you... uhh, not the dead town, but this... meeting you when I left the Stable was like this Jade. I was worried everywhere and everything was just dead and ugly, then I saw you the first time and... it felt like this. A beautiful, perfect flower growing in all this death. I'm trying to say I really love you Jade, I know I'm screwing it up but-."

My awkward speech was cut off by a lot of big blue alicorn tackling me to the carpet of daffodils and clover, passionately kissing and nuzzling my face with shimmering blue eyes sparkling over me, ending on a long, deep kiss that made my wings spring up under me.

Finally breaking it off with a gasp, Jade kept me pinned and wiped a leaking tear from her cheek, sniffling and leaning down to nuzzle happily. "I love you too Fast! So, so much... You are not screwing anything up, you are being wonderfully you, who I love. I am so happy that we found each other. Considering the path we each took to reach that wonderful moment, I believe it was fate we met. My wonderful, silly, cute little knight, my special somepony..."

Jade fluttered her long eyelashes and wriggled against me with a purr, returning to planting little kisses all over as I did the same, paying special attention to the magic spot on her neck that got a shiver at each lick. Before we could forget the dangerous ruins all around us and what we were doing completely, Val coughed with a huff and sent us both scrambling up, red faced at the interruption.

"Not ta break up the fun or nothin', But ya better get back here boss, stuff goin' on..." Val chuckled under her breath and hooked a thumb claw over her shoulder, back towards the green dashes on E.F.S. representing our group we had ducked away from.

She sounded a little bothered, but not frantic like it was an emergency. Despite my concern, I still felt worked up and in a sappy, romantic mood from all the beautiful flowers and my more beautiful special somepony. I dusted my dark coat off with a sheepish grin and tipped my hat back to its proper rakish angle, trotting up and trimming another red rose to tuck in Val's plumage with a hug, enjoying her sputtering at the affection.

"One for everybody I love Val, when else am I going to get the chance to give you flowers?"

"O-Other stuff ta worry bout 'sides dumb flowers boss, q-quit bein' goofy an' come on!" Val squawked back and turned quickly towards the central statue, not quite hiding how her bright red face grew redder, making me smile wider and follow along trimming more. She was happy, whether she tried to hide it or not, I made her happy, which always made me feel good. Val deserved happiness.

Reaching the plaza around the statue, I noticed the minotaurs spreading out through the park, calling out in muted voices for one of their number named Longshot, the white and black one with the bow if I remembered right. Before I had a chance to ask what was going on, Witching Hour glided down on the heels of one of those high pitched whines above me, prancing up anxiously and filling me in.

"One of the minotaurs is missing Fast! I can't hear him anywhere! No one's sure when he disappeared either." Witchy squeaked nervously, making me a little worried at her report.

I meant what I told Val though, willing whatever wasteland horror that was about to ruin this pleasant little break away, I floated another trimmed rose and stuck it in Witchy's violet mane over her blushing confusion. "One for everybody I care about Witchy, it looks good on you. Calm down, keep trying, he has to be somewhere right? I know you can find him."

Spotting Sledge Smasher moving away from Ivy and Glitter gave me an excuse to head to them first. I knew the disappearance of one of our guides was more important, potentially dangerous... But I wanted a break dammit, the wasteland could back off five freaking minutes and let me enjoy life a little, it was unfair to find such an oasis of beauty and serenity, only to have it shattered by some new threat.

Tucking the bright red rose in Ivy's blue mane was a lot less awkward, the psychic alicorn could read what I meant out of my head, instead of me trying to stumble over it and force it out my uncooperative mouth. Her bright green eyes glistened, sharing in unity how I felt about the big green mare, why I felt it was so important even in the middle of what we were doing. The kiss she leaned down to give was a bit more chaste and less passionate than Jade's, but warm and just as emotionally strong with the flow of her thoughts pouring into my head.

Glitter's rose went with her little jacket and pink dress perfectly, my wonderful little daughter pranced in place as I tucked it in her bouncy silver mane and nuzzled her tenderly. "A pretty flower for a pretty filly, huh sweetie? I love you very much Glitter, I don't think you're a baby, I just don't want anything to happen to you. I don't think I could take it, so it's just me being selfish ok?"

The force of her earth pony tackle matched Jade's, just without all the bulk to back it up. Glitter's delighted squeals and strong hug joined her words in making me feel better about bringing her with us. If nothing else, I had made her life better, that was probably the most important thing I had done since leaving the Stable. "Thank you daddy! I love you too!! I'll do what you say, I guess... so long as you know I'm not a baby! I can help you know!"

"I know sweetie, I count on it don't I? But a dad's job is to make sure his daughter is safe, I'll do whatever it takes to make sure you are, even if you don't like me for it."

She scrambled up my back and nestled between my wings with a bounce, hugging and nuzzling my neck as I trotted after Sledge and Zed joining him. "I'll always love you daddy, even if I get mad and act like I don't ok? I'll be good and hide though, you're the best dad in the world, so you'll always keep me safe!"

I wished I had her confidence... I still had nightmares of her being thrown from the top of the King's Gambit casino in Goodneighbor, of us both falling, the street rushing up, waking up in a sweaty panic and screaming awake just before we hit. If I was really the best dad in the world, she'd be nowhere near a deadly forest where all the plants and animals seemingly wanted to kill ponies. Keeping her close still seemed the best of a bad lot of options though.

Zed paused on his way to catch Sledge staring out from the arched entry to the park, raising an eyebrow at the last rose floating in my magic. This was awkward... I still held it out with a crooked smile and shrugged to the stern zebra. "Er... everybody else got one, didn't want you to feel left out Zed. N-Not that my barn door swings that way or anything, just... I'm glad we're friends Zed, you're a good stallion."

My face was burning under his narrowed grey eyes, but a sardonic smile finally spread on his muzzle before he reached out and took the flower in his teeth, tucking it in the lapel of his dark leather jacket and nodding. "I'll accept it as it was meant Fast, thank you. Now, I believe we may have a problem, put sentimentality aside and let's get down to business eh?"

"R-Right, Glitter, I think you should go back to your mom and Aunt Ivy, we may need to get moving quick ok?"

"Right daddy!" Glitter leapt from my back and saluted with a wide grin, galloping back to Jade and our ground bound bus as I trotted off with Zed to the minotaur staring out at the ruins suspiciously.

"Umm... something wrong Sledge? They said one of your tribe is missing?"

"Sssh! We're being hunted..." Sledge whispered back in a terse, gravelly voice, putting me on edge immediately. The tension and worry communicated through the normally cheery minotaur hunter had me draw my weapons and join him in looking all around in a panic.

After a few minutes of silence, Sledge gave one of his whistling bird calls and tromped back to the central statue, his massive club propped over his shoulder and his dark yellow eyes darting in every direction. He favored me with a gruff grumble as I ran to keep up with his long strides. "This isn't right, Willowville is Breezidore territory only. Something is here though, if Longshot's not answering, he's dead. Wouldn't be taken out by a bunch'a bugs either. Somethin's hunting us, I can feel its eyes, we need to move, the hub's a dead end too. Sorry little pony, heading that way is-"

His apologies over the change of plans was cut short by explosions ringing out ahead of us, on the other side of the park at least, but enough to send me running. As I passed Jade and the others standing near the bus anxiously, I shouted over my shoulder. "We're leaving! Something's wrong! Glitter, hide!"

I was glad I took time to talk with the little filly, for once she didn't argue, dashing right into the bus and her steel crate, as her mother hurriedly hitched herself to the vehicle. I hated coming so close and having to back off, but whatever was enough to put the minotaur's dander up was enough to worry me. Val was right on my tail with Zed at my side when we dashed to the opposite park entrance, coming to a pair of minotaurs and the Steel Ranger, his missile launcher still trailing smoke from recent launches, along with a few scorched spots on the sidewalk near his hooves.

"M-Monster... took Nimbus! F-Fucking chomped her with those fangs.. shot back and disappeared!" His steel clad hoof was shaking, pointing out into the ruins, terror and anger clear even through the speaker on his helmet distorting his voice.

Lt. Dawn came flying up in a rush, her novasurge rifles crackling with energy as she landed before her soldier and stamped a hoof. "Calm down Grinder! What was it? Which way did it go? Was Nimbus still alive?!"

Sledge's deep voice cut her off, rumbling as he spoke to the armored Brotherhood pony, but never taking his eyes off the ruins and the rising buzz of angry Breezidore's stirred up by the explosions. "What did it look like?"

"H-Heads... too many heads, big... fast..." The Ranger's shaky reply made Sledge wince and give a series of whistles and hand signs to the minotaurs converging on the noise.

"Fuck... The weird sisters... what the hell are they doing this far north? Don't tell me even they got pushed out by shit like the freaking Bugbear. This is bad Shroud pony, if it's them, we're already caught, running won't work." Sledge sounded very worried, which freaked me right the fuck out. The minotaur hunter had led us through these deadly woods in a jovial mood the whole time, whatever scared him, terrified me.

"W-What? What is it? What are the weird sisters?"

Before he could answer, a bright violet beam of magic streaked down and hammered into one of the minotaurs down the street, the lucky sneak attack turned him into a cloud of purple ash. I ran to the sparkling pile on the road and spun to the ruins where the shot seemed to have come from, seeing nothing, but hearing a hissing snicker somewhere out there. Sledge was right, something was hunting us, taking out two of our number and...

I thought hard at the green alicorn I sprinted back towards. Whatever this thing was, it was striking from the shadows, hitting from different sides of the park to spook us, while we ran towards one attack it struck somewhere else. The bus and the others were too tempting a target...

Ivy didn't question or need more explanation than my panicked thoughts, her bright green shield blazed to life as I pounded back, just in time to meet a searing green blast of plasma that impacted the barrier and cracked it. The shield was hastily thrown up around Jade and our bus with Ivy still awake and sweating under the blast, but they were all safe.

My blazing eyes followed the course of the blast quickly, freezing on a large, tattered billboard for Sparkle Cola atop an odd building with a soda bottle shaped entrance we had passed earlier. I had wanted to poke my head in the 'Sparkle World Outlet' as much as Jade wanted to visit Ping's Potions, somehow this thing had gotten behind us. Our attacker was sneering down with a malicious look in its eyes, their eyes? Too many eyes...

It was big... feline... mostly anyway. Matted pale fur covered it, bedecked in dark stripes and a lot of bloody wounds only partially healed, the striped white fur changed on its left side to longer, light grey fur going down its ribs and left hindleg, ending in a cloven hoof. The other three were big paws with long, dark claws dripping blood. The most distinctive feature was just what set Sledge off, it had too many heads...

The feline head was a snowy white, sabertoothed tiger, blood spattered all over its muzzle and long, gleaming fangs curving past its jaw. Beside this head was a second, sprouting from the left shoulder, the pale grey fur growing shaggy, leading up to the scruffy bearded goat head, long, dark horns curved down and framed its weird milky eyes with strange, horizontal pupils. The third head was on its' tail, was its' tail... The monster's sinuous, scaly tail was a snake... sort of, most snakes didn't have dragonish spikes running down their backs, and I'd expect green or brown scales, not the brilliant white ones this thing had.

The long tail-snake was twined around a massive magical plasma cannon, the hooded head swaying in place near the trigger. Not that was the only weapon this thing had gotten ahold of somewhere, it was a great deal bigger than a pony, but had adapted and rigged a battlesaddle to fit it. A spiky conglomeration of leather straps held weapons that looked like they were torn off wartime vehicles from somewhere like the plasma cannon that surely started life on a sky tank, a huge tribarreled minigun on the tiger's flank, along with a long magical energy weapon with glowing donut shaped rings down the barrel, crackling from the goat's flank.

"Well, well, well... our new home serves us up a hearty meal already sisters! And you thought we'd have to content ourselves with those foul tasting bugs." The tiger head was talking to the others...

"First things to brave coming here to us, I don't think it's normal either. Still say we need to move elsewhere for better hunting sister, look at all the tasty minotaurs, I told you we should go that way! Though this little feast will help us recover nicely so we can do so." The goat head brayed back.

"Minotaur, pony, griffon, zebra... it's a buffet sistersss, let's dig in and decide later..." The snake head hissed and moved the plasma cannon in its grip.

Chimera... I saw a picture in dad's Society for the Preservation of Magical Creatures book at home. This thing was a chimera... a very pale, albino chimera, bigger and obviously mutated, but not a mindless beast, it was smart... Dad's said they had pony level intelligence when I had shivered at the illustration, making them especially scary...

Given what it was saying, I felt no compunctions switching Blue Moon from 'pew-pew' to 'Ka-boom!' and firing as soon as the crackling crescent moon tip clicked out from my side. The wide, pale beam of magical energy lanced out, torching the ecstatic face of Fluttershy enjoying a carroty Sparkle Cola on the billboard it crouched behind, blowing through the insignificant barrier and clipping the beast's flank as it dove to the ruins and disappeared.

A veritable cloud of buzzing Breezidore's puffed up from where it vanished, filling the sky and turning Eyes Forward Sparkle into one solid red bar spread across my compass. They blocked the way back out of Willowville and surged forward in a swarm, the demented cackling of the Weird Sisters echoing through the ruins, impossible to track down and seeming to come from all around us. The monster trapped us...

I could see the glowing shield of the hub ahead, a clear path to run terminating at a giant tree stump of a entryway. We were low on options and any avenue of escape was worth taking, even if we had to put our backs to the wall of the hub's shield and fight from there, it was better than being surrounded here in the open.

"RUN! To the hub, now!! I'll keep them busy!!" I screamed and summoned my lightning aura, running where I last saw the chimera and floating one of Val's salvaged flamers along with the Terrible Shotgun.

I didn't have time to give more direct orders to the others, but trusted all of them completely, hearing Val's angry squawk and wingbeats behind me just reinforced that faith. Jade's rapid hoofbeats took a minute to get going, but she charged off with the bus bouncing behind her, running to get our daughter away from the danger behind them.

A blur of movement came with the tinkling of glass being smashed just behind me, I spun to face the attack and skidded backwards from my momentum, spotting the chimera growling from where it had pounced through a storefront, those sharp claws sparking with the electricity I left in my wake.

"You're a fassst little morsel, aren't y-" was as far as the snake head got, the Terrible Shotgun snapped up and started barking at the surprised monster. It had prowled through the ruined buildings, that's how it was sneaking around... planned on leaping out and taking the first pursuer, but wasn't prepared for a pony being propelled along by lightning and missed.

Two slugs slammed into the chimera's broad chest, all I could get before the tiger's huge minigun spun up and started chewing up the asphalt between us. A panicked flap of my wings sent me straight up, barely ahead of the line of fire, narrowly dodging a flurry of zaps from the strange M.E.W. the goat head used. Three enemies in one... they cooperated, fantastic...

Just to support that theory, the snake head drew a bead on my clumsy flight with the plasma cannon, once I had already committed to my dive to get away from the bright violet beams of magic. The glowing green blast of plasma went wide when a firecracker series of explosions engulfed the creature in flames, Val caught up and was blasting away with her 25mm grenade machinegun.

My horn crackled with lightning as I prepared to blast the thing, cut short by Val's frightened screech and pointing claw as she raced towards me. "BOSS! Behind you!!"

I had ignored the buzz behind me in favor of the bigger threat, realizing my mistake at Val's shout. I flipped in the air, facing a swarm of Breezidores coming down on my head, I switched targets and let the lightning loose, spreading it as wide as I could in a thunderous blast. Dozens of the snarling little pests fell smoking to the street, but plenty more were still coming, forcing me to pull out of the tumbling recoil from doing that in the air and dive to the nearest alley to run for all I was worth, faster on the ground than in the air.

My new hoof was throwing me off... giving sharp pains at each step that slowed my stride and made me keep veering to the right. Not that big a deal trotting or running normally, but at this speed it was a serious problem... I came out of the alley onto one of the side streets of Willowville, missing a step off the curb and tripping on my own hooves, rolling across the street to crash through a rotting wooden door.

The musty Red Racer scooter shop I landed in would be a lot more interesting if I wasn't running for my life, racks of scooters filled the space, rusting away as their cheery paint jobs flaked off. The angry buzzing and chittering from more dried mud nests, built over a peeling wooden cut out of the company president Scootaloo, helped me shake it off woozily and get moving 'Be Unwavering!'.

I sent a burst from the flamer still in my grip right at the nest before they could come pouring out, wincing at the few that got through and drew stinging lines down my neck and flank as they fled from the flames. Swatting a hoof at a sharp pain in my neck as I scrambled back out to the street brought back with a twitching breezidore corpse dripping on my hoof.

I staggered out to the sidewalk, trying to get away from the survivors and lick a bit of the golden nectar from the bulges on the smashed pest's flanks, trying really hard no to think about what exactly I was sticking my tongue into. I looked up as the pleasant euphoria of the nectar heading off the breezidore poison, only to faced with the swarm I left behind, following along in a cloud around the chimera bounding across the rooftops with a predatory gleam in its eyes.

Even with the threat of monstrous death barreling at me, I couldn't help but gape at the breezidores surrounding it 'Awareness!'. They were obviously stinging it, darting at its pale hide repeatedly and slashing out with clawed forelegs, but it wasn't having any effect whatsoever.

The same could not be said for any of us, my ears twitched at the sound of flamers being fired around the small town in long bursts, glad Val had pilfered both the weapons and lots of ammo for them. Immunity from breezidores would make this a safe haven for a monster like the weird sisters, judging by the wounds they were still covered with...

I gambled for time and cast my voice spell, letting the Shroud's booming words toll out to the empty streets, any extra second I could get for the deadly poison and awesome antidote to battle it out before trying to run again was worth it. "YOU COME HERE TO LICK YOUR WOUNDS AND THINK TO PESTER THE INNOCENT! WHAT HATH SCARED A PROUD BEAST LIKE THOU TO SLINK HERE WITH THINE TAIL TUCKED BETWEEN THINE LEGS MONSTER?!"

Maybe not the best idea to provoke the scary monster... I wasn't sure why I fell into the Shrouded Stallion's and Witchy's speech patterns either, but it sounded good anyway, probably because of how goofy I felt, maybe I licked a little too much nectar... Taunting it did have the benefit of making the chimera forget about its varied weaponry and give me a second, roaring in fury as it charged forward. I had to keep sending gouts of flame into the store behind me to hold still, but I was tensed and ready to dash off at any minute.

It was worth waiting, the tiger head screamed at the insult as it came. "Nothing scares us!! We made a tactical retreat!"

"Ssssshut up! I'm not tucked anywhere!" the snake headed tail hissed, still wrapped around that big cannon but nowhere near it.

"Let's see you deal with a pack of hellhounds pony!" the goat head brayed, giving me a better idea how the chimera wound up here.

Being patient in the face of impending death by chimera was surprisingly easy, casually standing in the street and waiting until it leaped off the roof of the pet store across the street wasn't that hard when stoned out of ones' mind. I loved nectar sooo much... everything felt loosey goosey, faint angelic horns filled my ears as the perfect shot presented itself.

KRACKA-THOOM!!!

Most of the radiation I had still been absorbing from the balewolves went into that blast, dropping my rainbow colored meter from the green / yellow border down to blue. I poured a lot into it and spread it out as far as I dared, sending a crackling web of lightning up to the sky in a burst of fireworks, wooooo...

That made an appreciable dent in the swarm at least, incinerating enough red dashes in my vision to start picking out individual marks again instead of one wide bar of red. The vicious little monsters were torched into a cloud of ash drifting down like snowflakes, along with the weird sisters falling from their leap heavily, twitching in the crater they made in the street in front of me.

"IF THOU HAD ASKED FOR HELP MY PRINCESS WOULD HAVE HEALED THINE WOUNDS! INSTEAD YOU ATTACK, CREEPING FROM THE SHADOWS AND MURDERING WITHOUT WARNING. RUNNING AWAY FROM SUPERIOR MONSTERS, HOPING TO MAKE THINE COWARDLY SELF FEEL BETTER BY BULLYING OTHERS? THOU HATH EARNED LUNA'S JUDGEMENT FOUL BEAST!"

I tossed several grenades into the crater and ran, glad for the warning red lights and alarms of instinct flashing from the phone poles when the weird sisters roared and pounced on my flickering trail again, going from wounded and groaning to efficient murder machine in an instant. It was playing possum... and pissed of course, very, very pissed.

"YOU!"

"ARE!'

"DEAD!!!"

One head after another screamed after me, finishing their threat between them. They worked together, like a simple form of unity... I knew ways to mess with unity though. Making them angry enough was joining them in one driving thought instead of three individuals able to attack and cooperate. Pretty smart brain. Why thank you body, by the by, you may want to move just a tad...

Spacing out sent me galloping right into a fallen light post, tripping and rolling across the ground head to tail in a dark blur. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! I lost my grip on the flamer, barely managing to pull the Terrible Shotgun to myself when I tripped and curling around the precious weapon as I tumbled. The roar of victory on my tail not a great sign...

I slammed to a halt upside down against the side of a checkered yellow chariot cab, thumping down to the road on my head with my tail falling in my spinning red eyes. The inverted image of the weird sisters was sprinting after me, snarling grins dripping drool at my prone form. I groaned and scrambled my hindlegs in the air above my face weakly, sure I was monster chow when a black and white streak spun through the air as the chimera hit the last intersection between us.

Zed's pip-buck bearing hindleg came down with the full force of his rapid spin, the zebra seemed to like using the nearly indestructible pip-buck casing as a weapon, getting stunning results. One of the goat head's curved, spiky horns broke as Zed's kick fell like a hammerblow, driving the mid-pounce airborne chimera down and to the left, skidding across the cracked streets right in front of me.

The weird sisters recovered quickly, or two out of three did anyway, the feline creature stumbled back up to get a powerful buck to the ribs driving it back. The tiger and snake heads snarled at the zebra dodging and battering it with heavy hoof strikes, while the goat head's eyes spun and it drooped limply.

I cheered from my upside down position, still feebly pawing at the air and trying to flip myself rightside up, realizing just flopping to my side would be a lot easier as Zed rolled away from the snake head snapping at him, winding up in range for a big claw to swat him across the street and into the wall surrounding a small apartment complex covered in vines.

The chimera followed up without pause, going after the closer prey or the bigger threat one. I yelped and tried to get my eyes to stop spinning long enough to aim the Terrible Shotgun and Vengeance, a cold sweat breaking out when I saw the blood in the zebra shaped dent in the wall over Zed, I couldn't aim in time!

Scorching pink beams came down like spears from the heavens, searing the chimera's back and forcing it back from the new attacker. Lt. Dawn came rocketing out of the canopy with a black and red contrail behind her, I wished I could fly like that... The Brotherhood mare defended Zed limping away and drinking a healing potion, falling behind the remaining Steel Ranger eagerly getting some revenge for the other pegasus he had seen killed in front of his eyes.

A pair of missiles fwooshed out from the Ranger's heavy battlesaddle, one missing entirely, while the second exploded around the chimera's legs nimbly dodging Dawn's attacks, slowing it down a bit closer to managable levels, as Dawn kept flitting in and out with a whooping battlecry, the two working together to drive the monster back.

She was so consumed with the threat, she didn't see the surviving breezidores buzzing from above, she flew right through a cloud of them and gave a pained scream, shit! I couldn't fly as well as Lt. Dawn, but I could fly and I had magic on my side, flapping up to her in panic and grabbing her with my telekinesis as she started to fall, she'd been stung... Her Ranger saw the problem but couldn't hope to catch her in time in his heavy armor, even if the weird sisters hadn't turned on him and forced him to retreat.

I was glad Enclave armor left the muzzle free, it made shoving the bulbous rear of the most recently killed breezidore I held onto in her mouth easier as I dragged her along with me. "Lick it! I know it's gross, but it's also pretty fucking awesome! Er... antidote rather! Hurry!"

Floating Dawn to my back and keeping my magical grip to make sure the bigger, armored mare was still weightless, I made sure Zed's and the Ranger's green dashes were moving off again, then flew towards the glowing shield of the hub and the biggest clump of green marks on E.F.S.. She groaned weakly but did as told, sticking her tongue out with a whine and slurping it back up coated in golden dust. That corpse was nearly used up, Jade spread around what samples of nectar she'd been able to gather before coming here, but it still wasn't much.

"Oh... oh that's better... What is this..." I heard the same goofiness I was trying to operate under creep into the normal stern mare's voice and bucked her from my back, holding her in my magic until I was sure her wings were beating lazily.

"No time! GO! Get to the others, let the antivenom work, I have to keep it busy!" I shouted and let her go, holding my breath when she dropped like a stone for a moment, before her instincts took over and she fluttered back up.

"Wait... something I was supposed to tell you, stupid minotaur plan thing... Oh! The bridge, the bigger one that looks like a tri-horned bunyip for some reason... wait, did it look like that before?! Is it playing a harmonica!?!" Yep... Lt. Dawn was feeling it alright...

I forgot the wonderful buzz of nectar was stronger for normal ponies... whoops. Oh well, I liked her better like this anyway, spotting the bridge she was pointing a hoof at, before she became incredibly interested in said hoof and started waving it in front of her face. She must be really stoned, that bridge plainly looked like a well coifed and mustached purple sea serpent playing the harp, not a tri-horned bunyip.

The ripping noise of the chimera's big minigun cut off my musing, a stream of tracers stitching the air and sparking across Lt. Dawn's dark armor, through the space between us and penetrating the armored coat over my flanks as I dove, a trio of stinging wounds dribbling blood down over my tender new hoof.

I hit the ground awkwardly, stumbling back around to face my pursuer and aiming at ...nothing. The bitch disappeared again, shit.. I stayed put, looking all around and really wishing the swarming breezies weren't cluttering E.F.S. so much.

"YOU REFUSE LUNA'S MERCY AND PERSIST MONSTER! NOW THINE FATE IS SEALED, STOP HIDING LIKE A COWARD AND FACE THINE JUDGEMENT FROM THE SHROUDED STALLION!" My magically altered voice roared out, a lot steadier than I was at the moment.

It failed to goad them out, I stared out in the too quiet streets and hastily floated Best Served to my mouth, cutting flowers was fine, but I really hoped to do a little pruning on the weird sisters when they inevitably popped out like a jack in the box. My ears twitched at a high pitched whine from above, followed by the chatter of an automatic combat rifle wielded by a screaming batpony filly and a furious roar in the building behind me.

Witching Hour sounded out where the chimera hid, hovering above and filling the empty floor to ceiling windows of the second story of a small office building. The weird sisters had been right above me, crouching in the windows and preparing to pounce, their stealth no match for Witchy's neat little radar trick.

More of the violet beams from the goat head's M.E.W. answered her stream of lead, forcing Witchy to roll gracefully away on her leathery wings and join me on the ground, her high pitched voice even higher in fear. "Fast! We need to take it under the bridge! The mino-"

Tackling a bigger batpony in full steel plate armor wasn't easy 'Be Strong!', but I managed to roll with her across the ground just ahead of a huge blast of plasma. I landed on top and jumped off, activating S.A.T.S. in midair and taking in fairly low odds with most of my weapons. That plasma cannon was a problem, the others were survivable if they got lucky as the bleeding wound in my flank attested to, but when that thing hit, it melted stuff, period. A sizzling new pothole in the street just in my frozen view made me gulp and look for a way to take it out.

The weird sisters were perched and ready to pounce from the window, the snake tail held high to get a good shot while the other two crouched like a coiled spring. Hitting her with either the shotgun or revolver wasn't likely, I really wanted to just cut the freaking tail off... At my thought, the odds were adjusted for using Best Served.

I had never used the melee weapon in S.A.T.S. before, conditioned to think it was simply for using projectiles. It gave me 50/50 chances for slashing the tail though, higher than I had otherwise and I was interested in how S.A.T.S. would handle the insanely sharp knife, let alone multiple attacks. I queued up two attacks and accepted, sitting back with mental popcorn to watch the show.

My blue magic surrounded Best Served and floated it out nimbly, spinning the blade horizontally and sending it shooting forward in a glittering blur. The snake head dodged as it streaked by, curling its sinuous body out of the way and giving a hissing snicker as it adjusted its aim. Then the second attack happened, Best Served looped through the air above and behind the chimera, still spinning rapidly and now returning like a boomerang, right at the sneering snake gloating at us.

The heavy plasma cannon fell to the street, smashing a rusty mailbox as the snake head fell in the gutter beside it with a soft thump. The dual wail of agony and sorrow made me feel a little bad for decapitating... de-tailing the monster, but it also made flying away with Witchy's insistent tugging a really good idea.

Well, on the plus side, that was one less weapon and attacker after us. It also ensured the pale beast chasing us was not going to hide again, the two heads remaining had the Bugbear's same apoplectic look in their eyes, she'd chase me wherever I went. Why was my default idea to make myself bait and run like a mad bastard? Couldn't I come up with an actual plan sometime, something that went smooth and nopony got hurt, especially me?

Apparently not, worse yet I was rubbing off on my friends... Witchy kept leading me on, staying low where the chimera could follow and hope to catch us, playing bait as well... Meanwhile I was just trying not to let a leer spread on my goofy face at the jiggly rump ahead of me, not the time dammit! I was struggling to keep her pace and follow, as she dropped into the dry creekbed and followed its course towards the bridge ahead.

It was a grown bridge, not a sea serpent apparently... a construct of trees asked to grow a certain way, arching across the deepening waterway as it hit a drop in the terrain, tumbling and turning down several empty pools of smooth river rock, before heading off to the MoP hub. I barely caught a glimpse of a minotaur hiding atop the span and really hoped they were pulling the same trick as before.

Just to be sure the weird sisters were nice and pissed, I turned and flew backwards awkwardly, dropping in speed to their hopeful glare and tossing a hooful of mines out just as they closed in. The rapid beeps and detonations staggered it and sent me flipping away, crippling the rear left goat hoof in time to throw off the M.E.W. on that flank.

Righting myself a little higher in the air, I turned back to the limping monster still chasing us, pulling down my eyelid with a hoof to my cheek and sticking my tongue out at them. "Nyaa Nyaa! One head down, two to go! Better quit while you're ahead!" Get it... a-head!!! Wocka, wocka, wocka!"

The snarling roar and furious bleat from the two remaining weird sisters assured me I had their total attention, the stream of 5mm rounds from the minigun was just overkill really... I turned back and flapped frantically, trying to catch up to Witchy and zip under the bridge coming up fast. A stream of lead stitched up my side and punched through my neck and right wing, sending me in a tailspin just ahead of the goal line.

Val was suddenly there, diving from the treetops and grabbing my scruff to pull me along with her, easily catching up to Witchy and soaring under the bridge, while I fumbled for a green tinted healing potion. We kept losing altitude and skidded to the muddy ground at the bottom of the creek before the first drop off, weaving my way back to my hooves and woozily looking at the chimera charging forward with madness gleaming in its eyes.

A pair of muscular minotaurs jumped down from the bridge above, dragging their woven nets from before with them to span the narrow gap under it as Val shot straight up, leaving me behind to gape in confusion. The bottom edge was held by the minotaurs and tied to heavy rocks they shoved down with them, the hunter's rippling arms wound around the vines and held it tight when the weird sisters ran right into the trap.

The net stretched closer to where I cringed, creaking and groaning under the chimera straining to reach me. One big, furry paw shoved through a gap in the vines, claws outstretched and coming within inches of my muzzle, but the minotaurs held firm, stopping the chimera in its tracks. The net wouldn't hold long, as soon as one of those two heads stopped being so fixated on ripping my face off, they'd claw it to pieces...

They weren't getting the chance though, another dark shape jumped down from the center of the bridge, the long, lowering whistle of a bomb falling coming from the massive wooden club Sledge Smasher had held in both hands overhead, curled with his head nearing his hooves as he bent backwards, then arcing forward in one smooth, full body motion. The gnarled head of the club came down on the tiger head snarling and snapping at me, outstretched and a perfect target.

I could swear I heard the ring of a bell when Sledge connected, a brightly lit 'Test Your Strength' carnival game appearing over the scruffy neck, the loud DING! coming from a magnificent overhead smash that drove the weight all the way up from 'Wimp' to 'Dragon!'. The bizarre vision made me roll laughter, a little macabre as nobody else saw it, just the tiger head turned to grey and red jelly... Still, pretty funny.

The goat head's eyes widened and it seemed to realize it was all alone now, and caught... It was able to control the whole body on its own apparently though, scrambling away and leaving the remains of her tiger sister with a sickening, tearing sound, making me think of my missing hoof again and fight to keep my lunch. Smashing the head, hilarious, reminding me of ripping my own leg off... not so much.

The last weird sister managed to pull free of the already strained net, turning on its heel and trying to flee the way it came. The gleeful cry of Val streaking down with a pair of mounted minotaur scrambling down the mossy banks of the creekbed cut it off on the other side. That's why she took off again... she must have been up there to begin with and had to leave her post to save me. Her flying in with her blazing Shishkebab definitely seemed planned anyway, following up on the minotaur spears impaling it in the chest to pin it and slicing off the last head like a scythe.

When the now triple decaptitated corpse fell to the ground, I thumped down with it in exhaustion. Raising my forelegs up in a feeble V and giving a hoarse cheer. "Yaaaaay... we won..."

Witchy was soon worriedly mummifiying me in magical bandages, rooting around in my saddlebags for another of Jade's radioactive healing potions and forcing it my muzzle, ignoring my giggling over her ticklish touch as Val landed beside us. My griffon bodyguard took a hard look at the assorted wounds I was bleeding from and wrapped her dark claw in my scarf, shaking me forcefully, but not quite hard enough to interfere with Witchy's efforts.

"Would. You. Stop. Doing. That. Boss!!! How'm I 'posed ta bodygaurd when ya keep runnin' off like a lunatic right at the big fucking monster!! Grrraaaa!! Gonna gimme a heart attack! Quit it!!" Val screeched and tried to sound angry, but she was being too gentle and worry was clear in her voice, taking in my spinning eyes goggling at her with a grin and snorting to herself. "Yer too freakin' stoned ta bother yellin' at, ain't ya stupid?!"

"Mmmmaaaaaybe... You're pretty when you're mad Val! Where'd you get the fancy golden armor though?"

Val huffed and tossed me back to Witchy's anxious first aid, slapping a claw to her face and dragging it down slowly with an exasperated sigh as Sledge came over. The minotaur leader was sweaty and shaky, his huge bloody club slung over his shoulder and a big toothy grin on his face. His friendliest slap to the back so far sent me sprawling into the mud as he chortled and boomed happily.

"Oh yeeeaaah!!! Yer little filly was right Shroud pony! Took on the toughest of the tough an' lived! Can hardly believe it an' saw it myself! You kill stuff good little pony! Bitch treated you like a pushover and got the once over! You got any idea the honor we'll get when we come back with the Weird Sisters!? Bitch has been a pain in the ass for ages!!" Despite the protest of Val and Witchy, Sledge just kept right on clapping me on the back, driving me down into a Fast shaped dent in the creekbed cheerily.

"Owwww... That's great Sledge... W-Wait! Jade!! Glitter!?! Where... I gotta go!!"

I yelped and flapped up, caught by the tail in Sledge's strong grip and straining to get to the glowing yellow shield of the hub, noting the smaller, angular green shield covering the big tree stump building in front of it. I glared down at the impediment keeping me in place impatiently, only kept at bay from bucking his friendly face by the hand held up in surrender, shifting to pointing a thick finger up at the cloud of breezidores swarming all over Willowville, a good sized clump throwing themselves uselessly at Ivy's shield.

"Easy! Not keepin' ya from yer mare and kid, those little beasties are gonna be stirred up quite awhile though. No doubt you can get to em after all that, but we can't stay here. We're takin' the carcass and pullin' back, you go on and poke around that hub, lay low awhile and recover and we'll come back when things settle down alright? Imagine it'll be pretty borin' just sittin' at that shield what with no way in, but best bet. We ain't leavin' ya hanging though, so just wait it out and trust us, can't abandon a friend of the tribe!" Sledge beamed and let my tail go, getting me to reluctantly hover in place realizing he had thought things through a lot further than I had. I just wanted to get to Jade and Glitter, period.

"R-Right! Umm... we'll hunker down there, if we get in somehow, we'll be back as soon as we can and hope the breezidores settle down by then. Thank you Sledge, for everything! I gotta go!!"

I wove my way up and away from the parting cheers of Sledge and his hunters, he did just as he said, they got us to the hub and helped us survive the forest. He was probably right, we'd be stuck in that weird giant treestump building Ivy's shield was glowing in front of. But if the breezidores eventually settled back down we should be able to wait them out and leave fairly safely. For now they were an angry swarm buzzing above Willowville, all the noise and explosions must have riled up every one of them infesting the place.

Considering my unsteady and slow progress in the air, Val huffed and grabbed my coat, pulling me along up to her speed and streaking towards Ivy's shield, holding a flamer in her other claw and grumbling down at me as she juked and jived through the cloud of furious little pests. "Better let Ives know we're comin' boss! Can't slow down!"

"Right!" I kept flapping as well as I could, closing my eyes and trusting Val to handle the driving as I thought at the green alicorn I was coming in range of. (Ivy! We're coming now! Get ready!)

Ivy's telepathic answer made me worry more, what was wrong with Jade!? Was she just worried? It didn't feel like it, but Ivy was clearly concerned... I had to get to her, now! Opening my eyes again to the fwoosh of Val and Witchy's flamers scorching a path through the cloud of breezidores ahead, I saw she was on target for the shield rapidly approaching, grunting down at me anxiously. "Boss!? Shield!"

"Keep going! Dive right at it, Ivy will open it, trust her! Hang on tight too, I got one more in me...."

Even in our situation, Val's beak curled in a wide grin as her grip on my collar tightened and a manic gleam lit her violet eyes, she loved using me as a pony shaped weapon... I summoned the last big blast of lightning I could manage on my own magic reserves, all the extra juice from radiation was long gone. While I had considerably more magic at my command now than before I was ...changed, I had been burning through it recklessly.

The crackling web of electricity blasted out, scorching a wide swath out of the swarm and making even Val's streaking flight hitch in the air as I was thrown back in her grip. Even though I trusted Ivy completely, I still gulped and clenched my eyes as the glowing green barrier of her shield rushed up.

We didn't smash into the alicorn shield when we should have, so I assumed Ivy had made an opening just in time and we passed through safely. I opened one eye cautiously as we landed hard and I was released to stumble free, more bursts of flame sounded out all around us, scorching the breezidores that managed to slip through with us.

The long stream of flame coming from the bus parked by the entrance and a scowling little filly behind the weapon sending it out caught my eye first, Glitter was determined to play with that thing, though I couldn't really fault her for being out of her box, until we crashed through it had been relatively safe.

I tried to turn and help exterminate the last of the poisonous little pests, worried to see one slip by and launch itself at Val's flank, chomping down just to be ripped in half by her quick claws. She immediately brought the remains to her beak and went for the antivenom it produced at least. The last pair of winged monsters zipped out of the wave of flames chasing them, only to be snatched from the air and crushed under Zed's strong hooves. The zebra winced when he landed on his hindlegs, obviously still hurt but alright and safe with the others, letting me breathe a sigh of relief.

The soft exhale was suddenly turned into a whoosh of air being squeezed out by very strong forelegs, Jade scooped me up in a crushing hug and cut off any attempts to take in any more of where they were sheltered, fluttering up off the ground in her joy, nuzzling and kissing frantically as healing magic surged through me, her horn a blazing torch above me. "Faaaast!!! There you are! I was so worried! But you are safe and sound now, mostly... I will fix your boo-boos my cutie wootie smoopy pie! I looooove hugging you like this, so small and cute, my little teddy bear! I will cuddle you and pet you and kiss you and lick you and call you George!"

"J-Jade! W-What? Umm... h-happy to see you too... a-air... Eeep!! E-Easy! E-Everybody's h-here!" I wheezed weakly in her grip, shook back and forth limply by a lot of strong alicorn who was being veeeery affectionate, her lidded blue eyes mismatched sizes and a crooked, goofy grin spread across her muzzle.

Glitter had to make a pretty impressive leap to tackle the both of us and try to drag her back down to earth, only making breathing harder under her tiny hooves grip, yelping with worried relief. "Daddy!! Y-You're ok right!? Mom's actin' really weird! Q-Quit it mommy! Go back down!"

Rather than do as asked, Jade simply shifted Glitter into her forelegs, hugging the both of us and nuzzling her silver mane happily. "I love it every time you call me mommy dear! It makes me sooooo happy! Now I have both the ponies I love the most to cuddle, I shall never, ever, ever, ever let go! Mwwwwwahhh!"

The smack of sloppy kisses alternating between Glitter and myself left me to sputter and look to Ivy in confusion, the green alicorn was looking up with a tired but mischievous smirk under her glowing horn and shrugged. "Er... Sister Jade was stung a few times on our escape here, she had to take a good deal of... antivenom... so she's been a bit of a hoofull. Oh sister? I hate to interrupt but I can only maintain this for so long, I need Fast to open these doors or I must sit still and focus to keep it up. If you could settle for just one pony to cuddle for a moment?"

Jade huffed and stuck her nose up, turning away from Ivy's plea and tightening her grip with an annoyed whinny. "Nnnnno! I do not want to! These are mine, I want to play with them! Dress them up in silly hats and take a bubble bath! Fast will be Captain Sparkle-butt and I shall be the lusty barmaid Argonia! Sailing the sudsy seas of adventure and romance!"

I had to strain and shove with my forelegs to pull away just slightly under Jade's iron grip, leaning up to plant a long kiss on her jabbering muzzle to cut her off. The big blue mare was stoned out of her gourd quoting her dogearred romance novel she thought no one knew she read stuffed in a Canterlot Journal of Internal Medicine, but that got through at least, eliciting a long purr and nicker of pleasure when I broke it off and tried to keep her spinning gaze on me.

"Jade... you gotta lemme go a minute ok? Important stuff... umm... you wanna go inside right? To the Ministry of Peace? You have to let me open the door then...."

That got her attention, those crazy mismatched eyes widened and her head bobbed rapidly with a cowbell sound, her eyes closed in a cheery smile, opening to beam at me and plant more kisses between answering. "Yes! ... I want ... to go in! ... For the Followers! ... Miss Remedy! ... will be soooooo proud! ... Open the door for me ... and I will give you sooooo much rewarding Sparkle-butt! .... You can go but I'm keeping Glitter! ... My sweetie weetie widdle bitty filly baby wuvs her mommy does she not!?"

As soon as she released me she turned all her inebriated attention on Glitter, squirming and gasping her her brawny hug with her tongue stuck out under all the slobbery kisses, glaring daggers at me for sacrificing her to my goofy princess. "H-Hurry daddy! Ick! Mooo-oom!! Quit it!"

I had to put up with the weary chuckles of my friends, noting even Scribe Blossom and the remaining Steel Ranger smirking at me staggering loose and blinking tiredly at where we sheltered. Lt. Dawn was being attended to by her scribe, but clearly just as loopy as Jade from her own dose of nectar, giggling and waving cheerily. "That looks fun! I wanna hug smoopie pie!"

Rolling my eyes at the tittering Brotherhood leader, I peered around to get a good look at the giant treestump enclosed by Ivy's shield butting up against the much more powerful yellow version surrounding the hub. The cross and butterflies mark was burnt into the bark overhead, above the simple sign reading;

A wide set of pink double doors seemed made of the bark itself, identifiable by the peeling paint and narrow line of demarcation blending in with the surface, and the glowing green terminal on a post to the side overgrown with flowering vines. I nodded to Ivy's weary face watching as she kept pouring magic into her shield, if she had to keep it up much longer, she'd need to sit perfectly still and go into that odd meditation state. Doing so let her make her strongest shields that would last quite some time, but she needed rest too.

Opening the entrance here would at least give us a sealed building to shelter in, we'd probably have to wait out the swarm for a few hours whether we got in our not. Personally I was interested in just getting in and flopping down with my over affectionate princess, hoping there were multiple rooms inside, at least a broom closet or something, the things she wanted to do while under the effects of nectar sounded promising...

I patched my pip-buck to the terminal and got to work, forced to shake my head repeatedly to clear away the green cartoon chimera dancing on the screen and swiping the lines of code away with its claws. It took longer than it should, but I cracked it and the doors creaked open, I poked my head in to the dusty space first and saw nothing on E.F.S., waving the others forward and filing in to the spacious, round waiting room inside.

It really did look like the admittance area of a hospital, a wide flowery green carpet led from the doors we entered, straight through to a matching set on the other side of the room. Directly to the right was a sign in counter cutting off about a third of the space behind dirty glass, a small door beside the counter led back to the office space back there, so if nothing else there was a somewhat private space, exxxxcellent...

To the left were lots of actually comfortable looking seats, couches and small chairs, rotting coffee tables with a variety of moldy magazines, a corner of the space was even filled with toys and colorful posters for kids that Glitter desperately wanted to get loose to dash off to, held firm by her mother's nuzzling grip.

Once everyone was in and we had grabbed plenty of food and supplies from the bus to wait out the swarm, I shut the doors and relocked them. At Jade's urgent nudging, I stumbled my way across the room with her hovering right over my shoulder, dipping slightly to go under the interesting crystalline chandelier that looked like it was growing from the ceiling, providing clear, bright light in the room.

Another, fancier terminal waited by the bigger set of double doors facing the shield outside, the whir of a glowing red eye faced me at my approach, just like the advanced system in the MoM hub in Goodneighbor. As I suspected, not a system that could be hacked in a few minutes of keyboard surfing... Jade's beaming smile under her blissfully closed eyes urged me on though, I had to try at least...

I patched my pip-buck in and took a tired look over the system, the waiting screen filled my vision and I began to poke and prod at the security cautiously, watching the lines of text scrolling across the system, probing us as I probed it.

LUNA TIER ATTACK SCENARIO LOCKDOWN PROTOCOLS INITIATED
AWAITING BUNNY LEVEL SECURITY AUTHORIZATION

SCANNING PATIENTS... EXTERNAL DEVICES DETECTED... SCANNING...

MULTIPLE WOUNDS DETECTED... GUNSHOTS, MAGICAL ENERGY BURNS, UNKNOWN POISON, FRACTURED RIBS, LACERATIONS....
UNKNOWN BIOLOGICAL SPECIMEN DETECTED... PONY VARIANT... PATIENT...
MATERNITY PATIENTS DETECTED....
FOAL PATIENT... MINOR CONTUSIONS, MINOR PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA
NON-PONY PATIENTS DETECTED... GRIFFON, ZEBRA...
MILITARY PATIENTS DETECTED... WARTIME STRESS DISORDER EVIDENT...

UNABLE TO ADMIT, LUNA TIER ATTACK SCENARIO PROTOCOLS...
REFER TO FILLYTON GENERAL HOSPITAL... FILLYTON CONNECTION UNAVAILABLE... REFER TO MASS BAY MEDICAL CENTER... MASS BAY CONNECTION UNAVAILABLE... REFER TO MAREFORD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL... MAREFORD CONNECTION UNAVAILABLE...

SCANNING... SCANNING... SCANNING.......

PLAYER JDE RECOGNIZED... HIGH SCORE HOLDER, UNIT #17, INVITATION ACCEPTED, BYPASSING LOCKDOWN...

ADMITTING PATIENTS, PLEASE STAND BY...

That red eye of the camera whirred and focused on Jade fluttering beside me, looking her up and down as the advanced maneframe thought to itself, leaving me dumbfounded as it did what I wanted by itself. Player JDE? High score holder? The game... the arcade game in Goodneighbor, Ministry of Peace Hero... Jade had dominated that simple video game tucked away in the corner of Shamrock's casino, the victory screen did say something about inviting her to join the Ministry of Peace... The hub was connected to them? Recognized her?

I fell away from the terminal and goggled at it, waiting hopefully for the doors to click open. Jade's big blue eyes sparkled watching me detach my pip-buck, squirming as much as the filly she was crushing against her breast and looking up in wide eyed wonder as the weird crystal chandelier brightened and started sparking with magical power.

"Oh... oh shit... Admittance... guys I think it's gonna-"

That was as far as I got, the others looked my way worriedly at the quickly intensifying glow from the crystal construct above, shading their eyes against the brightening glare and gaping. The crackling arcane power built up to a low roar and the room was absolutely filled with blinding light, I clenched my eyes shut against it and heard a loud ZAP!.

The world turned upside down and inside out, the bright glare behind my eyelids was replaced by utter blackness with text flashing in the darkness that swallowed me.

Mission Updated: Lifegiver

Objectives------
---Find the Ministry of Peace Hub
---Follow the minotaurs to the MoP Hub
---Gain entry to the MoP Hub

New Perk Added!------------------

Mighty Hunter---
---Working together and learning from the skilled minotaur hunters of Salt Lick has taught you a trick or two! In combat, you now do 75% more critical damage against animals and mutated animals.

Reputation Change!---------------

Salt Lick- Liked
---You managed to live up to Glitter's boasting and took down a legendary beast of the western woods! Helping to kill the Weird Sisters is sure to impress the minotaurs of Salt Lick when the hunters return with stories of the battle! Besides being welcome in the settlement and getting better prices, you've taken a good step towards getting the powerful tribe on your side!